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CLI\TDEN  LIBRARY 

SheLf    Ci   ^'--  LlUoy 

Number  ...m. 

Date ce^^X —  - 


LIVING    BAYONETS 

A  RECORD   OF    THE  LAST  PUSH 


BY   THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

KHAKI   COURAGE: 

Letters  in  War-Time 

THE  GLORY  OF  THE  TRENCHES 

OUT  TO  WIN 

THE  BODLEY  HEAD 


LIVING  BAYONETS 

A   RECORD   OF  THE  LAST   PUSH 
By     CONINGSBY     DAWSON 


LONDON:    JOHN    LANE,   THE    RODLEY    HEAD 
NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY    MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,    I919 
BY   JOHN    LANE   COMPANY 


PRINTKB    BY   MORRISON    AND   GIBB   LIMITED,   EDINBURGH 


"  Our  spirits  are  living  bayonets.  The 
ideals  which  we  carry  in  our  hearts 
are  tnore  deadly  to  the  enemy 
than     any     ^nan-made     weapons." 


FOREWORD 

THESE  selections  from  collected  letters  of 
CoNiNGSBY  Dawson  have  been  edited 
by  his  sister,  Muriel  Dawson,  and  are 
published  in  response  to  hundreds  of  requests. 
Readers  of  his  first  volume  of  correspondence  from 
the  Front,  issued  under  the  title  of"  Khaki  Courage," 
have  written  from  all  over  the  country  asking 
that  a  further  series  be  given  them.  The  generous 
appreciation  and  personal  interest  expressed  by 
these  readers  have  induced  Lieutenant  Coningsby 
Dawson's  family  to  publish  these  letters.  They 
take  up  his  story  at  the  point  where  "  Khaki 
Courage"  laid  it  down,  at  the  time  when  America 
entered  the  war. 


LIVING    BAYONETS 

A   RECORD   OF  THE  LAST  PUSH 


LIVING    BAYONETS 

A  RECORD  OF  THE  LAST  PUSH 

I 

France 
April  14,  1917 

THE  other  night  at  twelve  your  letters 
came  to  me  just  as  I  was  climbing  into 
my  bunk,  so  recently  tenanted  by  a 
Hun.  I  immediately  lit  another  candle,  stuck  it 
on  the  wall  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  myself,  and 
started  on  a  feast  of  genuine  home  gossip. 

WTiat  a  difference  it  must  make  to  you  to  know 
that  the  United  States  are  at  last  confessedly  our 
Ally.  Their  financial  and  industrial  support  will 
be  invaluable  to  us  and  will  make  a  difference  at 
once.  And  the  moral  advantage  of  having  them 
on  our  side  is  the  greatest  wound  to  the  spirit  of 
Germany  that  she  has  received  since  the  war 
started.     It  will  be  real  fun  to  be  able  to  come 

back  to  New  York  in  khaki,  won't  it  ? — instead  of 
I 


2  LIVING  BAYONETS 

slinking  in  as  a  civilian.  Besides,  if  I  get 
wounded,  I'll  be  able  to  come  home  to  visit  you 
on  leave  now. 

This  big  decision  has  made  me  almost  gay  ever 
since  it  happened.     I  have  such  a  new  affection 
for  everything  across  the  Atlantic — almost  as  if 
New  York  and  the  Hudson  were  just  across  the 
lawn  from  England,  the  nearest  of  near  neigh- 
bours.    I  wish  with  all  my  heart  that  I  could 
drop  in  on  you  for  a  day  and  just  sit  down  on  the 
sunny  verandah  and  talk  and  talk.     There's  so 
much  I  want  to  hear  and  so  much  I  want    to 
understand  in  the  changed  attitude  of  America. 
I'm  sure  everyone  must  be  much  more  happy  now 
that  the  cloud  of  reproach  has  lifted  and  the 
brightness  of  heroism  is  in  the  air.     It  shines  in 
my  imagination  like  the  clear  blueness  above  the 
white  towers  of  New  York.     There's  one  thing 
certain  ;    now  that  the  President  has  made  up 
his  mind,  the  country  will  go  as  baldheadedly  for 
war  as  it  has  for  everything  else  it  ever  set  out  to 
attain.     The  real  momentousness  of  this  happen- 
ing hasn't  been  appreciated  by  the  fighting  men 
out  here  yet.     With  a  sublime  arrogance  they 
feel  themselves  quite  capable  of  licking  Germany 
without  the  assistance  of  anyone. 


LIVING  BAYONETS 


II 

France 
April  17,  1917 

[,AST  night  I  was  out  on  a  working  party — a 
moonlight  night  with  sleet  falling,  and  did 
not  get  back  till  past  two.  The  first  thing 
my  flash-light  fell  on  as  I  entered  my  dug-out 
was  a  pile  of  letters  from  home.  At  past  3  a.m. 
I  was  still  reading  them,  when  H.  and  B.  woke 
up  and  asked  if  there  was  anything  for  them. 
There  was.  So  there  we  were  all  lying  in  our 
bunks  and  reading  our  love-letters  till  nearly 
4  a.m. 

Yesterday  I  had  a  very  exciting  time,  I  was 
doing  some  reconnoitring  along  the  front  when  a 
bullet  whizzed  by  and  almost  scorched  the  ear  of 
my  sergeant.  We  hopped  into  a  trench  about  two 
feet  full  of  water.  But  whenever  we  showed  our- 
selves the  sniping  started  up  again.  At  last  we 
got  tired  of  wading,  so  climbed  out  and  made  a 
dash  across  the  open.  None  of  us  was  caught, 
but  by  pure  bad  luck  another  sergeant  of  mine, 
who  was  waiting  quite  300  yards  away,  got  it  in 
the  back.  He  was  a  big,  heavy  chap,  and  we 
had  quite  a  shppery  time  carrying  him  out  on 
a  stretcher  to  the  dressing-station.  That's  the 
second  N.C.O.  who's  been  hit  with  me  in  the  last 
ten   days.     The   other   chap  got   it   in   his   side. 


4  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Either  of  these  wounds  would  have  been  nice  to 
get  for  anyone  who  wanted  a  rest.  But  I  don't 
want  to  get  out  yet ;  all  the  really  sporting  part 
of  this  war  will  be  this  summer.  We  are  praying 
that  we  may  come  into  action  at  the  gallop, 
"  Halt,  action  front  !  "  bang  off  our  rounds  and 
follow  up  again. 

For  some  reason,  to-day  my  memory  has  been 
full  of  pictures  of  that  wonderful  leave  we  had 
together  in  London.  Things  have  come  back  that 
I'd  forgotten — visits  to  theatres,  to  restaurants, 
rides  in  taxis,  so  many  things — all  the  time 
there's  that  extraordinary  atmosphere  of  intense 
love.  I  suppose  I  must  have  spent  the  night 
dreaming  of  you.  Living  in  the  daylight  hours 
in  this  deep  dug-out  makes  spring  seem  like 
winter  ;  I  expect  that  helps  me  to  remember. 
How  I  wish  I  could  have  those  ten  days  again. 
Perhaps  our  next  will  be  in  New  York,  when  I 
come  back  in  khaki  for  an  odd  week.  The 
thought  of  such  a  happening  in  the  future  and 
the  recollection  of  the  meeting  that  is  past  are 
like  coming  to  a  fire  out  of  a  dark,  cold  night. 
This  war  is  so  monstrously  impersonal ;  the 
attachments  one  forms  with  those  among  whom 
he  lives  are  so  few,  that  the  passionately  personal 
affections  of  the  old  days  shine  out  like  beacon 
fires.  It  will  be  wonderful  when  the  war  ends 
and  one  can  sit  still  in  a  great  hush. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  5 

Yesterday  I  had  a  day  off  for  a  bath  behind 
the  lines — I  hadn't  tubbed  for  well  over  a 
month  and  hadn't  been  back  of  the  guns  ;  also 
I  had  slept  in  my  clothes — so  you  may  judge 
that  warm  water  and  soap  were  a  necessity. 
Afterwards  I  had  great  fun  shopping  for  the 
mess,  but  I  didn't  manage  to  buy  much,  as  the 
country  is  all  eaten  up.  All  that  is  beautiful  in 
the  way  of  landscape  Ues  ahead,  so  we're  very 
anxious  to  capture  it  from  the  Hun.  One  looks 
out  over  his  back  country,  so  green  and  beauti- 
ful and  untouched,  and  feels  hke  an  Old  Testa- 
ment spy  having  a  peep  at  the  Promised  Land. 
Without  doubt  it  will  be  ours  in  the  ordained 
time.  When  I  went  out  this  morning  it  was  to 
see  a  blue,  blue  sky,  a  battery  pulling  into  action 
and  behind  it  a  desolated  town.  But  the  feature 
that  caught  my  attention  was  the  spring  sky. 
I  stared  and  stared  at  it  and  thought  of  when 
the  war  is  ended.  To-day  I  had  to  go  to  another 
town  which  is  in  process  of  being  battered. 
On  my  way  back  I  passed  through  a  wood — 
most  of  the  trees  were  levelled  to  the  ground. 
In  the  wood  I  found  a  hawk  wounded  by  shrapnel, 
and  pressing  close  behind  a  fallen  trunk.  And 
I  found  my  first  spring  flower — a  daffodil — 
which  I  am  enclosing  to  you.  I've  sent  you 
many  flowers,  but  none  which  carries  with  it 
more    love   than    this   little   withered   daffodil— 


6  LIVING  BAYONETS 

my  first  token  of  spring — gathered  from  a  fought- 
over  woodland  of  France, 

Since  writing  thus  far  it  has  been  raining  cats 
and  dogs,  and  I've  been  catching  the  mud,  which 
leaks  through  my  roof,  in  a  soup-plate.  Little 
things  like  mud  and  rain  don't  damp  our  ardour, 
however  ;   we  press  on  and  on  to  certain  victory. 

One  of  our  officers  came  back  from  leave  to-day 
— he'd  spent  his  freedom  in  Devon,  and  was  full 
of  the  beauty  of  the  spring-time  there.  Happy 
Devon  !  War  has  changed  the  seasons  in  France. 
Winter  started  in  October  ;  it's  the  middle  of 
April  and  winter  has  not  yet  ended.  Oh,  to 
wake  up  again  with  the  splendid  assurance  of 
a  summer  day  with  nothing  but  beauty — such 
a  peaceful  day  as  we  have  so  often  spent  at 
Kootenay.  That  wounded  hawk,  crouching 
among  the  daffodils,  is  a  symbol — we're  like 
that  :  beasts  of  prey  for  our  country's  sake, 
maimed  in  mind  and  spirit,  and  waiting  till 
our  wings  grow  strong  again.  And  yet — who 
would  be  anywhere  else  but  here  so  long  as 
the  war  lasts  ?  Oh,  the  fine  clean  courage  of 
the  men  in  the  face  of  danger  and  their  brave 
endurance  in  the  presence  of  privation !  It 
passes  understanding.  I  saw  a  chap  with  a 
mortal  wound  the  other  day  thinking  nothing  of 
himself — only  of  his  pal,  who  was  but  slightly 
wounded.     The    most    unendurable   people    act 


LIVING  BAYONETS  7 

like  heroes  in  the  face  of  death.  There's  a  funda- 
mental nobihty  in  all  men  which  comes  to  the 
surface  when  life  is  most  despairing. 

Ill 

France 
April  19, 1917 

I  SIT  in  a  hole  in  a  recent  battlefield.  Over 
my  head  is  some  tattered  canvas,  upheld  by 
Fritzie  shovels.  In  a  battered  bucket  wood 
splutters,  and  the  rain  it  raincth  every  day. 
To  make  my  appearance  more  gipsy-like  I  may 
add  that  my  hands  are  cracked  with  the  mud. 
When  the  war  is  ended  I  shall  lie  in  bed  for  a 
month. 

We've  come  through  some  very  lively  times  of 
late,  and  I  shall  have  plenty  of  local  colour  to 
impart  to  you  when  the  war  is  ended.  My  mind 
is  packed  with  vivid  pictures  which  I  cannot  tell. 
This  huge  silence  which  rests  between  indi- 
viduals is  the  most  terrific  thing  about  the  war. 
You  get  the  terror  made  concrete  for  you  when 
you  creep  to  your  Observation  Post  and  spy 
upon  the  Hun  country.  In  the  foreground  is 
a  long  stretch  of  barbed  wire,  shell-holes  and 
mud.  Behind  that  a  ruined  town  ;  then  gradu- 
ally, greenness  growing  more  vivid  as  it  recedes 
to  the  horizon.  Nothing  stirs.  You  may  look 
through  your  telescope  all  day,  but  nothing  stirs. 


8  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Yet  you  know  that  in  every  hole  the  hidden 
death  lurks  ;  should  you  for  a  moment  forget 
and  raise  your  head  unwarily,  you  are  reminded 
of  your  folly  by  the  crack  of  a  rifle.  I've  always 
made  the  mistake  of  believing  the  best  of  every- 
one— and,  as  a  soldier,  I've  never  been  able  to 
credit  the  fact  that  anyone  of  a  big  nation  would 
count  himself  happy  to  get  my  scalp.  The  actual 
passes  belief,  I  recall  so  vividly  that  story  of 
the  final  war,  written  by  a  German,  The  Human 
Slaughter-house.  The  chap  never  realizes  the 
awfulness  of  his  job  until  for  the  first  time  he 
comes  face  to  face  with  the  young  boy  he's  called 
upon  to  kill.  We  kill  by  hundreds  from  a  dis- 
tance, but  the  destroyed  and  the  destroyers  rarely 
have  a  hint  of  each  other's  identity.  I  came  to 
a  dug-out  the  other  day  in  a  battered  trench. 
Even  the  water  in  the  shell-holes  was  dyed  by 
explosives  to  the  colour  of  blood.  Outside  lay 
a  German,  face  downwards  in  the  mud — an  old 
man  with  grizzled  hair.  I  shoved  my  revolver 
round  the  mouth  of  the  dug-out  and  called  to 
anyone  who  was  there  to  come  out.  A  Cockney 
voice  answered ;  then  followed  a  scrambling  ; 
two  huge  feet  came  up  through  the  dark  ;  they 
belonged  to  a  dead  German  ;  two  of  his  com- 
rades grinned  cheerfully  at  me  from  behind  the 
corpse  and  propelled  it  none  too  reverently  into 
the  mud.     Behind   the   party   I   discovered  my 


LIVING   BAYONETS  9 

Cockney -adventurer  —  a  machine-gunner  who, 
having  lost  his  company,  made  amends  by  cap- 
turing three  Fritzes  and  killing  two  others  with 
the  aid  of  a  pal  with  a  shattered  leg.  I  told  him 
to  bring  his  pal  up.  Under  his  directions  the 
Fritzes  trotted  back  into  the  hole  and  brought 
out  the  wounded  fellow.  They  were  extra- 
ordinarily meek-looking  and  quite  surprisingly 
gentle  ;  when  I'd  told  them  where  the  dressing- 
station  was,  they  made  a  bandy-chair  of  their 
hands,  placed  our  fellow's  arms  about  their  necks 
and  staggered  away  through  the  barrage — or 
curtain  of  fire,  as  the  papers  like  to  call  it— back 
to  safety  with  their  wounded  enemy.  And  yet 
within  the  hour  all  these  people  had  been  chuck- 
ing bombs  at  one  another. 

A  few  days  ago  I  was  detailed  for  a  novel 
experience — to  follow  up  the  infantry  attack 
across  No  Man's  Land  to  the  Hun  Front  line  and 
as  far  as  his  support  trenches.  I  called  foi 
volunteers  to  accompany  me  and  had  a  splendid 
lot  of  chaps.  My  party  got  away  with  the  ad- 
venture without  a  scratch — which  was  extra- 
ordinarily lucky.  Moreover,  we  accomplished  the 
particular  job  that  we  were  called  upon  to  do. 

To-night  I'm  out  from  dusk  to  daylight  pok- 
ing through  the  darkness  in  a  country  where 
one  dare  not  use  a  flash-light.  Between  two 
ruined  towns  I  have  to  pass  a  battered  Calvary. 


10  LIVING  BAYONETS 

The  Christ  upon  His  Cross  is  still  untouched, 
though  the  shrine  and  surrounding  trees  are 
smashed  to  atoms.  I  think  He  means  more  to 
me  like  that — stripped  of  His  gorgeousness — 
than  ever.  He  seems  so  like  ourselves  in  His 
lonely  and  unhallowed  suffering.  The  road  which 
leads  to  and  from  Him  is  symbolic — shell-torn, 
scattered  with  dead  horses  and  men,  while  ahead 
the  snarl  of  shrapnel  darts  across  the  sky  and 
spends  itself  in  little  fleecy  puffs.  All  this  desola- 
tion will  be  re-created  one  day,  the  country  will 
grow  green  and,  in  another  country,  greener 
than  any  upon  earth,  those  dead  men  will  walk 
and  laugh — and  in  that  other  country  the  Christ 
will  no  longer  hang  alone  and  aloofly.  I  like 
to  think  of  that — of  the  beauty  in  the  future, 
if  not  in  this,  then  in  some  other  world.  One 
grows  tired,  just  like  that  image  on  the  Cross. 
How  little  the  body  counts  !  War  teaches  us 
that. 

IV 

France 
April  22,  1917 

I  HAD  a  letter  from  each  one  of  you  the  day 
before  last,  and  they  reached  me  within  three 
weeks  of  being  written — it  made  you  all  seem 
very  near. 

I  am  writing  this  to  you  from  a  mercifully 
deep   dug-out,    which   was   the   home   of    Huns 


LIVING  BAYONETS  ii 

considerably  less  than  a  fortnight  ago.  I'm  sure 
it  was  very  obhging  of  them  to  think  ahead  and 
provide  us  with  such  safe  hiding-places  from 
their  villainous  shells.  They  have  knocked  the 
house  down  overhead.  In  the  yard  is  a  broken 
bird-cage — the  owner  must  have  set  the  captive 
free  before  he  made  good  his  own  escape.  Hang- 
ing at  the  head  of  my  bunk  is  an  iron  crucifix 
and  on  the  wall  is  a  beautiful  woman's  portrait. 
One  hardly  thinks  of  his  enemy  as  being  human 
these  days — he  seems  only  an  impersonal  de- 
vastating force  ;  but  it  was  a  man  with  affections 
who  lately  tenanted  my  dug-out. 

In  a  recent  attack  I  saw  a  curious  happening. 
I  was  up  with  the  infantry  as  liaison  officer  when 
one  of  our  planes  was  shot  down.  The  pilot 
made  an  effort  to  land  behind  our  trenches,  but 
his  machine  was  unmanageable  and  he  came 
down  in  Boche  territory — or  what  had  been 
Boche  territory  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before. 
Through  my  glasses  I  saw  the  pilot  and  observer 
get  out  and  start  to  creep  cautiously  back.  We 
ourselves  didn't  know  for  certain  where  the 
Huns  were — all  we  knew  was  that  they  were 
supposed  to  be  withdrawing.  When  the  air- 
men arrived  at  our  battalion  headquarters  they 
were  still  scarcely  convinced  that  our  chaps 
were  not  Huns  in  khaki.  When  we  gave  them 
a  meal  of  bully-beef  they  knew  that  we  were 


12  LIVING  BAYONETS 

British.     So  very  much  I  could  tell  you  which 
is  thrilling  and  heroic  if  only  I  were  allowed. 

Do  you  know,  sometimes  I  marvel  at  my  con- 
tented loneliness  ?  It  isn't  like  me.  I  ought  to 
be  homesick  and — but  I'm  not.  I'm  too  much 
consumed  with  the  frenzy  of  an  ideal  to  care 
for  anything  but  to  see  the  principle  for  which 
we  fight  established.  What  one  man  can  do  isn't 
much — only  a  Jesus  can  save  the  world  single- 
handed  ;  the  real  satisfaction  is  in  one's  own 
soul,  that  softness  and  success  had  not  made  him 
deaf  to  the  voice  of  duty  when  she  called  to  him. 
For  me  this  undertaking  is  as  holy  as  a  crusade  ; 
if  it  were  not  I  could  not  endure  the  sights.  As 
it  is  I  keep  quiet  in  my  soul,  feehng  humbly  glad 
that  I  am  allowed  to  fulfil  the  dreams  of  my 
boyhood,  I  always  wanted  to  do  something  to 
save  the  world,  you  remember.  First  I  was  going 
to  be  a  missionary  ;  then  a  reformer  ;  then  a 
preacher  ;  then  a  poet.  Instead  of  any  of  these 
I  "  struck  luck  "  as  a  novelist — and  I  can  see 
now  how  success  was  corroding  to  one's  ideals. 
Success  in  America  is  so  inevitably  measured  in 
terms  of  praise  and  money.  I  wanted  to  save 
the  world  ;  never  in  my  wildest  dreams  did  it 
occur  to  me  that  I  should  get  my  chance  as  a 
soldier.  I  remember  when  I  was  studying  history 
at  Oxford  how  I  used  to  shudder  at  the  de- 
scriptions of  battles,  especially  mediaeval  battles 


LIVING  BAYONETS  13 

waged  by  mailed  Titans.  I  don't  know  what 
change  has  taken  place  in  me  ;  this  is  a  more 
damnable  war  in  its  possibilities  for  suffering 
than  any  of  a  bygone  age  ;  in  comparison,  those 
old  wars  seem  chivalrous  and  humane.  And  yet 
because  of  the  spiritual  goal  for  which  we  fight 
I  no  longer  shudder.  Yes,  that  is  the  reason  for 
the  change.  A  man  doesn't  often  get  the  chance 
in  these  commercial  times  to  risk  all  that  he 
holds  most  dear  for  humanity's  sake.  I  think 
of  the  morning  family  prayers  of  childhood  in 
the  old  panelled  room  in  Highbury  and  the  peti- 
tions you  used  to  make  for  us — everything  has 
shaped  towards  this  great  moment  in  our  Uves  ; 
the  past  was  a  straight  road  leading  to  this  crisis. 
I  don't  forget  the  share  you  three  contribute — 
the  share  of  your  brave  loneliness  and  waiting. 
Your  share  is  the  greatest.     God  bless  you. 

Our  major  was  twice  wounded  in  the  recent 
offensives  and  has  now  left  us  for  a  higher  posi- 
tion.    I  was  terribly  sorry  to  lose  him. 

V 

France 
April  30,  1917 

The  mud  has  gone.  Spring  is  here  and  the  sun 
shines  all  the  time.  Oh,  a  most  enjoyable  war, 
I  do  assure  you.  When  I  wakened  this  morning 
I  wandered  up  the  thirty  stairs  from  my  dug-out 


14  LIVING  BAYONETS 

into  the  former  garden,  which  is  now  a  scene 
of  the  utmost  desolation.  A  row  was  going 
on  as  though  the  Celestial  housemaid  had 
lost  her  temper  and  given  notice,  and  was 
tumbhng  all  the  plates  from  the  pantry  through 
the  clouds.  Above  the  clatter  I  heard  a  sound 
which  was  almost  alarming :  the  clear,  brave 
note  of  a  thrush,  piping,  piping,  piping.  He 
didn't  seem  to  care  a  rap  how  often  the  guns 
blew  their  noses  or  how  often  the  Hun  shrapnel 
clashed  Hke  cymbals  overhead  ;  he  had  his  song 
to  sing  in  the  sunshine,  and  was  determined  to 
sing  it,  no  matter  that  the  song  might  go  un- 
heard. So  there  I  stood  and  listened  to  him 
among  the  ruins,  as  one  might  Hsten  to  a  faithful 
priest  in  a  fallen  church.  I  re-created  in  imagina- 
tion the  people  who  had  hved  here  for  genera- 
tions, their  tragedies,  kindnesses,  love-affairs.  It 
must  have  been  a  beautiful  place  once,  for  every- 
where there  are  stumps  of  fruit-trees,  hedges  of 
box  trodden  almost  underground,  circular  patches 
which  were  flower-beds.  I  can  picture  the  exiles' 
joy  when  they  hear  that  their  village  has  been  re- 
captured. Presently  they'll  come  back,  these  old 
women  and  men — for  their  sons  are  fighting — 
and  they'll  look  in  vain  for  even  the  landmarks 
of  the  Uttle  house  which  once  sheltered  their 
affections.  The  thrush  in  the  tree  is  all  that  the 
Huns  have  left  of  past  history.     We  British  lose 


LIVING  BAYONETS  15 

our  men  in  the  fight,  but  the  sacrifice  of  the 
French  is  immeasurable,  for  when  their  sons  are 
dead  they  have  no  quiet  place  of  recollections. 
They  can't  say,  "  Do  you  remember  how  he 
walked  here  two  years  back  ?  "  or  "  These  holly- 
hocks he  planted,"  or  "  How  he  waved  us  good- 
bye as  we  watched  him  from  the  gate  !  "  The 
same  cyclone  of  passion  which  has  taken  their 
sons'  lives,  has  robbed  them  of  everything  tangible 
which  would  remind  them  of  him. 

As  regards  the  U.S.A.  joining  with  us,  I  have 
spoken  with  several  Huns.  They  one  and  all 
seem  very  dejected  about  it,  and  seem  to  con- 
sider the  loss  of  America's  friendship  one  of  the 
greatest  blows  of  the  war. 

VI 

France 
May  10,  1917 

I'm  just  back  at  the  guns  from  a  two  days'  rest 
at  the  wagon -lines.  It's  the  first  time  I've  been 
back  since  March.  I  rose  early  on  a  blazing 
morning  and  started  down  to  the  point  where 
I  was  to  meet  my  horses.  I  say  "  rose  early," 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  had  only  had  four  hours' 
sleep  in  forty-eight,  and  hadn't  had  my  clothes 
off  for  nearly  three  weeks.  As  I  drew  away,  the 
low  thunder  that  we  make  grew  less  and  less, 
the    indescribable    smell    of   bursting   explosives 


i6  LIVING  BAYONETS 

fainter  ;  soon  I  realized  that  a  lark  was  singing 
overhead  ;  then  another — then  another.  Brave 
little  birds  to  come  so  near  to  danger  to  sing  for 
us.  At  the  edge  of  a  wood  I  found  my  chestnut 
mare,  Kitty,  and  my  groom — the  chap  who 
used  to  work  at  the  Silver  King  mine,  which 
overlooks  our  ranch  at  Kootenay.  That  we 
should  share  that  memory  always  forms  a  bond 
of  kindness  between  us.  We  didn't  stop  long  at 
the  wagon-line,  but  soon  started  out  to  get 
farther  back  for  lunch.  I  had  it  in  the  shack  of 
an  ofhcer  who  was  with  me  at  Petewawa.  Then 
off  I  went  at  a  gallop  for  green  trees  and  clean 
country.  I  hadn't  gone  far  before  I  came  to  a 
God's  Acre  full  of  crowded  little  white  crosses 
and  newly  turned  earth.  Our  captain  was  with 
me,  and  he  learnt  that  an  old  friend  from  one  of 
our  batteries  was  on  the  way  down  with  a  Union 
Jack  spread  over  him.  We  went  into  the  brown 
field  where  the  men  who  have  "  gone  west  "  lie 
so  closely  and  snugly  side  by  side,  and  came  to 
a  place  where  six  shallow  holes  were  dug  like 
clay  coffins.  Presently,  winding  through  the 
forest  of  crosses,  the  hard  blue  sky  overhead,  we 
saw  the  little  band  advancing,  the  stretcher 
carried  high  on  the  shoulders  of  four  officers. 
The  burden  was  set  down  and  the  flag  lifted, 
showing  the  mummy-like  form  sewn  up  in  the 
blanket  in  which  the  living  man  had  slept.     The 


LIVING  BAYONETS  17 

chaplain  began  tremulously,  "  I  am  the  Resur- 
rection and  the  life  ;  he  who  belie veth  in  Me," 
etc.,  and  while  he  recited  I  watched  the  faces  of 
the  gunners  drawn  up  at  attention  in  the  strong 
sunlight.  To  them,  whatever  else  the  ceremony 
meant,  it  at  least  meant  this — a  day  away  from 
the  guns.  Suddenly  I  discovered  that  the  Lord's 
Prayer  was  being  said.  Then  heads  were  again 
covered  and  the  word  of  command  was  given. 
"  Right  turn.  Quick  march."  The  stretcher 
was  gathered  up  and  the  little  crowd  dispersed. 
I  suppose  there  is  a  woman  somewhere  who 
would  have  given  ten  years  of  life  to  have  stood 
in  my  shoes  beside  that  narrow  grave.  For  my- 
self I  thought,  "  Well,  the  chap's  got  what  we 
long  for  most  out  here — rest.  He  won't  have 
to  stand  in  the  mud  any  more,  when  his  feet 
are  like  stones  and  eyes  like  lead,  watching  and 
watching  the  rockets  go  up  along  the  front. 
And  he  won't  have  to  guide  his  guns  in  at  night, 
or  wonder  what  hfe  will  do  to  him  when  the  war 
is  ended.  He  longed  for  sleep  and  now  he  sleeps 
endlessly."  It  didn't  impress  me  as  at  all  sad. 
He'd  played  his  part  like  a  man  and  was  at  last 
rewarded.  But  we — we  were  alive,  and  we 
hadn't  had  a  bath  for  a  month — so  we  jumped  on 
our  horses  and  trotted  off  to  the  nearest  shower. 
It  was  five  in  the  afternoon  when  we  again 
took  to  the  highway.  We  wanted  to  sponge  out 
2 


i8  LIVING  BAYONETS 

our  minds  by  looking  at  something  beautiful, 
just  as  we  had  sponged  down  our  bodies.  We, 
I  should  explain,  were  myself  and  the  captain 
of  my  battery.  Soon  we  found  ourselves  among 
fields  from  which  all  the  wrinkles  of  trenches 
and  pit-marks  of  shell-holes  had  been  smoothed 
out.  There  was  a  river  winding  between  tall 
trees  unblasted  by  the  curtain  of  fire.  Peasants 
were  at  work  on  their  little  patches — women 
and  either  very  old  men  or  boys.  We  came  to 
a  town  as  quiet  and  unspoiled  as  those  we  used 
to  visit  in  pre-war  days.  In  a  courtyard  we 
tethered  our  horses  and  then  sat  down  to  one 
of  those  incomparable  French  meals.  It  was 
splendid  after  canned  stuff,  and  you  couldn't 
hear  the  boom  of  a  single  gun.  The  peace  of 
the  place  got  hold  of  us — we  didn't  want  to  go 
back  too  hurriedly,  and  kept  postponing  and 
postponing.  A  blue  and  gold  haze  with  a  touch 
of  silver  shining  through  it  was  blurring  all  the 
sky,  when  we  remounted.  We  travelled  slowly, 
singing — thinking  up  the  twilight  songs  of  other 
times.  My  thoughts  went  back  to  Scotch 
holidays  at  Arran  and  Loch  Katrine  —  the 
daringly  late  evenings  of  childhood.  Reluct- 
antly we  came  back  and  saw  the  frantic  city  of 
Very  lights  grow  up,  which  indicate  the  Hun 
front.  The  air  began  to  be  shaken  again  by  the 
prolonged  agony  of  rushing  shells  and  stamping 


LIVING  BAYONETS  19 

guns.  It  was  only  after  midnight,  when  we  had 
reached  our  hut,  that  I  remembered  the  need  of 
sleep.  But  when  I  struck  a  match  on  entering, 
I  found  letters  from  each  one  of  you  awaiting — 
so  lay  late  in  bed  reading  them  by  candlelight 
for  another  hour.  One  snatches  at  small  pleasures 
and  magnifies  them  into  intensity. 

Your  letters  told  me  about  Khaki  Courage,  and 
seeing  "  Colonel  Newcome,"  and  about  the  High- 
landers in  New  York.  \Vliat  a  very  much  more 
homely  place  America  must  be  to  you  now.  I 
must  say  I  am  keen  to  see  the  book.  It's  not 
mine  at  all — it's  you  dear  home  people's — you 
called  it  out  and  you  put  it  together. 

Here  I  sit  in  the  underground  place  which  I 
have  to  call  "  home  "  at  present.  You  go  through 
all  kinds  of  contortions  to  enter.  Stephen  Lea- 
cock  could  be  very  funny  at  my  expense. 

VII 

France 
June  2,  1917 

It  is  II  a.m.,  and  I'm  sitting  at  the  bottom  of 
a  dug-out  waiting  for  the  Hun  to  finish  his 
morning  hate  before  I  go  upstairs.  He  seems 
very  angry,  and  has  just  caved  in  one  of  our  walls. 
Mother  seemed  most  awfully  sorry  for  me  in 
her  last  letter.  But  you  know  I'm  really  having 
rather  a  good   time,  despite  having  a  minimum 


20  LIVING  BAYONETS 

amount  of  washing  and  having  our  mess  kitchen 
blown  in  every  few  days.  The  only  time  that 
one  gets  melancholy  is  when  nothing  is  doing. 
An  attack  or  the  preparations  for  an  attack  are 
real  fun.  Everybody  is  on  his  toes,  and  there's 
no  time  to  think, 

■  •••••• 

It's  four  hours  later.  Just  as  I  had  reached 
this  point  news  came  that  some  of  our  chaps  were 
buried,  so  I  had  a  little  brisk  spade-work,  then 
a  wriggling  voyage  through  a  hole,  and  then  a 
lot  of  messy  work  pouring  iodine  into  wounds 
and  binding  up.  I'm  afraid  my  hands  are  still 
rather  like  a  murderer's.  Incidentally  our  kitchen 
is  entirely  done  for  this  time.  We've  got  the 
wounded  fellows  on  their  way  to  Blighty,  and  are 
fairly  confident  that  they're  not  going  west  this 
time. 

I  am  so  glad  that  the  coming  of  America  into 
the  game  has  made  so  much  difference  to  you. 
I  wish  I  could  come  back  for  a  fortnight  and 
share  the  excitement  with  you.  It's  difficult  to 
picture  New  York  as  a  military  pageant  in  khaki. 
Tell  me  all  about  the  young  fellows  I  know  and 
what  they  are  doing.  I  wonder  how  many  are 
in  the  Field  Artillery — which  is  about  the  most 
interesting  part  of  the  game. 

You  remember  that  Calvary  I  told  you  about. 
I  saw  it  under  another  guise  after  writing.     Some- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  21 

thing  happened  and,  instead  of  the  spring  peace, 
it  was  a  shamble  with  horses  and  men  dying. 
In  such  cases  one  can't  do  anything — he  has  to 
go  on  about  his  own  errand. 

I'm  so  very  dirty  that  I'll  leave  off  now  while 
there's  a  chance  to  have  a  wash.  I'm  awfully 
muddy,  and  my  hair  is  just  ready  for  growing 
potatoes — there's  about  a  pound  of  the  real 
estate  of  France  in  it. 

VIII 

France 
June  6,  1917 

You  certainly  are  owed  a  whole  lot  of  letters, 
but  it  is  very  difficult  to  find  the  time  under 
present  conditions — I  didn't  get  my  breakfast 
until  7.30  p.m.  yesterday.  And  to-day  I  was  up 
at  4  a.m.,  and  didn't  come  back  from  up  front  till 
dusk.  So  you  see  I  really  have  some  excuse  for 
being  temporaril}^  a  bad  correspondent.  You 
don't  need  to  be  sorry  for  me,  though,  or  an^iihing 
like  that,  for  I'm  having  quite  a  good  time. 
After  the  mud  this  hard  white  sunlight  is  a  god- 
send.    Do  you  remember 

June  7. — Thus  far  I  got  when  I  was  inter- 
rupted, and  another  day  has  gone  by.  I'm  just 
back  again  from  up  front.  I  went  there  at  dawn 
to  do  some  reconnaissance  work.     By  eight  the 


22  LIVING  BAYONETS 

heat  was  sweltering — just  the  way  it  was  when 
we  made  our  memorable  trip  down  the  Loire 
valley — only  now  there  are  no  estaminets  at 
which  to  drink  Ciro  Citron.  The  only  inhabit- 
ants of  the  place  where  I  am  now  are  the  mayor 
and  his  daughter,  who  returned  the  moment  the 
town  was  captured.  Rather  fine  of  them.  Yes- 
terday a  French  soldier  looked  in  (on  special 
leave)  to  claim  what  was  left  of  his  cottage  ;  just 
as  much,  I  should  imagine,  as  you  could  make 
into  a  road.  And  yet,  despite  the  fallen  houses, 
the  fruit-trees  are  green  and  not  so  long  ago  were 
white  with  bloom  and  nodding, 

I'm  feeling  extraordinarily  lazy  and  comfort- 
able. I've  taken  two  hours  over  shaving  and 
washing.  My  basin  was  the  brass  case  of  a  big 
eight-inch  naval  shell  which  was  formerly  the 
property  of  the  Hun.  I  wish  I  could  send  you 
one  back.  Two  mornings  ago  I  had  a  dive  and 
swim  in  a  shell-hole  filled  with  rain-water,  which 
gives  you  some  idea  of  the  sized  crater  a  big  shell 
can  make.  From  henceforth,  however,  I  shall 
have  to  eschew  this  pleasure,  as  I  understand 
that  the  ground  is  so  poisoned  with  corpses,  etc., 
that  the  water  is  hkely  to  bring  on  skin  disease. 
I  have  that  to  a  slight  extent  already.  Most  of 
us  have — it  comes  from  eating  no  vegetables 
and  nothing  but  tinned  stuff. 

How  interested  you'd  be  if  you  could  just  go 


LIVING  BAYONETS  23 

for  a  couple  of  hours'  walk  with  me.  Coming 
back  to-day  I  marvelled  that  we  had  ever  managed 
to  make  our  advance  ;  the  Hun  machine-gun 
emplacements  were  so  strongly  fortified  and  well 
chosen.  It  speaks  volumes  for  the  impetuosity  of 
our  infantry. 

IX 

France 
June  ly,  1917 

I  BELIEVE  it  must  be  nearly  a  week  since  I  wrote. 
The  reason  is  that  I'm  down  at  the  wagon-lines, 
supposed  to  be  resting,  which  is  when  we  work 
the  hardest.  First  of  all,  we  had  a  grand  in- 
spection of  the  Brigade,  which  kept  one  going 
from  5  a.m.  to  10.30  p.m.,  cleaning  harness. 
Then  we  had  Brigade  sports,  which  are  not  yet 
over,  and  which  don't  leave  an  oihcer  with  any 
leisure.  The  best  time  for  letter-writing  is 
when  one  is  in  action,  since  you  sit  in  a  dug-out 
for  interminable  hours  with  nothing  much  to 
keep  you  busy. 

I'm  looking  forward  very  much  to  the  receipt 
of  Khaki  Courage  ;  it  hasn't  come  yet.  It  will 
be  hke  reading  something  absolutely  beyond  my 
knowledge. 

It  is  now  evening.  This  has  been  a  mixed  day. 
I've  been  orderly  officer.  This  morning  I  heard 
Canon  Scott  preach — he  was  the  father  I  wrote 
to  you  about  whom  I  met  going  up  front  in  the 


24  LIVING  BAYONETS 

winter  to  look  for  the  body  of  his  son.  He's  a 
fine  old  chap,  and  fully  believes  that  he's  fated  to 
leave  his  bones  in  France,  This  afternoon  was 
spent  in  harness-cleaning  and  this  evening  in 
watching  a  Brigade  display  of  boxing.  A  strange 
world  !  But  you'll  judge  that  we're  having  quite 
good  times.  Last  night  we  had  an  open-air 
concert — "  Silver  Threads  among  the  Gold,"  "  The 
Long,  Long  Trail,"  etc.  Trenches  lay  behind  us 
and  ahead  of  us — not  so  long  ago  Huns  could 
have  reached  us  with  a  revolver  shot,  where  we 
were  all  sitting.  Overhead,  Hke  rooks  through 
the  twilight,  our  fighting  planes  sailed  home  to  bed. 
Far  away  on  the  horizon,  observers  in  the  Hun 
balloons  must  have  been  watching  us.  It  was 
almost  possible  to  forget  that  a  war  existed; 
almost,  until  a  reminder  came  with  a  roar  and 
column  of  black  smoke  to  a  distant  flank. 

Monday. 

This  letter  gets  scribbled  in  pieces.  I'm  now 
waiting  for  the  afternoon  parade  to  fall  in.  The 
gramophone  is  strumming  out  a  banjo  song,  and 

in  my  galvanized  hut  it's  as  hot  as  ,     Most 

of  the  men  strip  off  everything  but  their  breeches 
and  go  about  their  horses  dripping  like  stokers. 
The  place  isn't  so  unlike  Petewawa  in  some 
respects,  except  that  there  is  no  water.  You 
look  for  miles  across  a  landscape  of  sage-green 


LIVING  BAYONETS  25 

and  chalk,  with  straight  French  roads  running 
without  a  waver  from  sky-hne  to  sky-Une. 
There's  nothing  habitable  in  sight — only  grey 
piles  and  sphntered  trees.  But  in  spite  of  the 
wholesale  destruction  one  finds  beauty.  You'd 
smile  if  you  could  see  our  camp — it  looks  like  a 
collection  of  gipsy  bivouacs  made  of  lean-tos  of 
wood  with  canvas  and  sand-bags  for  roofs.  The 
rats  are  getting  bold,  and  coming  out  of  the 
trenches — rather  a  nuisance.  It's  strange  to 
be  here  playing  football  on  the  very  ground  over 
which  not  so  long  ago  I  followed  the  infantry 
within  half  an  hour  of  the  commencement  of  the 
attack.  Our  wounded  chaps  were  crawling  back, 
trying  to  drag  themselves  out  of  the  Hun  barrage, 
which  was  ploughing  up  the  ground  aU  around, 
and  the  Huns  were  lying  like  piled-up  wheatsacks 
in  their  battered  front  line.  One  learns  to  have  a 
very  short  memory  and  to  be  glad  of  the  present. 
Within  sight  a  httle  trench  tramway  runs  just 
like  the  Welsh  toy-railway  of  our  childhood.  It 
leads  all  the  way  to  Blighty  and  New  York  and 
Kootenay.  One  can  see  the  wounded  coming  out 
on  it,  and  sometimes  sees  them  with  a  little  envy. 


26  LIVING  BAYONETS 

X 

France 
June  23,  1917 

Last  night  Khaki  Courage  arrived.  I  found  the 
Officers'  Mess  assembled  round  my  mail — they'd 
guessed  what  was  in  the  package.  I  had  in- 
tended smuggling  the  book  away,  and  did  actually 
succeed  in  getting  it  into  my  trench-coat  pocket, 
A  free  fight  ensued  and,  since  there  were  four 
against  one,  I  was  soon  conquered.  Then  one 
of  them,  having  taken  possession  of  the  little 
volume,  danced  about  our  tin  tabernacle  reading 
extracts.  I  had  planned  to  ride  into  a  neigh- 
bouring city  for  dinner  that  night,  but  sat  reading 
till  nearly  twelve.  I  can't  thank  you  all  enough 
for  your  loving  work.  I  think  the  proof  of  how 
well  you  have  done  it  is,  that  my  brother  officers 
are  quite  uncynically  keen  about  it.  If  they, 
who  have  shared  the  atmosphere  which  I  have 
unconsciously  set  down  in  its  pages,  can  read  with 
eagerness  and  without  ridicule,  I  think  the 
book,  as  compiled  by  you,  dear  people,  should 
stand  the  test. 

Do  you  remember  a  description  I  gave  you 
some  months  back  of  seeing  Huns  brought  up 
from  a  captured  dug-out  ?  That's  long  enough 
ago  now  for  me  to  be  able  to  give  you  a  few 
details,     A    fortnight    before    the    show    com- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  27 

menced  it  was  planned  that  an  officer  from  each 
battery  with  a  party  of  volunteers  should  follow 
up  the  infantry  attack  and  build  a  road  through 
the  Hun  Front  line  over  which  our  artillery  should 
advance.  The  initial  work  was  carried  on  at 
night,  and  the  road  was  built  right  up  to  our  own 
front-line.  On  the  morning  of  the  attack  I  took 
my  volunteers  forward  and  hid  with  the  rest  of 
the  party  in  one  of  our  support  trenches.  We 
judged  that  we  should  escape  the  Hun  barrage 
there,  and  should  have  advanced  before  his  retalia- 
tion on  our  back  country  commenced.  Soon  after 
midnight,  on  a  cold  morning  when  the  sleet  was 
falling,  we  set  out.  The  sky  was  faintly  tinged 
with  a  grey  dawn  when  our  offensive  opened. 
Suddenly  the  intense  and  almost  spiritual  quiet 
was  changed  into  frantic  chaos.  The  sky  was 
vividly  ht  with  every  kind  of  ingeniously  con- 
trived destruction.  In  addition  to  his  other 
shells,  the  Hun  flung  back  gas  and  liquid  fire. 
It  looked  as  though  no  infantry  could  Uve  in  it. 
Within  an  hour  of  the  offensive  starting,  each 
officer  crept  out  of  his  trench  and  went  forward 
to  reconnoitre  the  ground,  taking  with  him  one 
N.C.O.  and  a  runner.  My  runner  carried  with 
him  a  lot  of  stakes  with  white  rags  attached  for 
marking  out  our  route.  We  wound  our  way 
carefully  through  the  shells  until  we  reached  our 
won    Front   hne.     Here    the    Hun    barrage  was 


28  LIVING  BAYONETS 

falling  briskly,  and  gas-shells  were  coming  over  to 
beat  the  band.  The  bursting  of  explosives  was 
for  all  the  world  like  corn  popping  in  a  pan. 
We  ran  across  what  had  been  No  Man's  Land 
and  entered  the  Hun  wire.  My  job  was  to  build 
from  here  to  his  support-trenches.  His  front- 
line trench  was  piled  high  with  dead.  The  whole 
spectacle  was  unreal  as  something  that  had  been 
staged  ;  the  corpses  looked  like  wax-works.  One 
didn't  have  time  to  observe  much,  for  flames 
seemed  to  be  going  off  beneath  one's  feet  almost 
every  second,  and  it  seemed  marvellous  that  we 
contrived  to  live  where  there  was  so  much  death. 
As  we  went  farther  back  we  began  to  find  our 
own  khaki-clad  dead.  I  don't  think  the  Huns 
had  got  them  ;  it  was  our  own  barrage,  which 
they  had  followed  too  quickly  in  the  eagerness  of 
the  attack.  Then  we  came  to  where  the  liquid 
fire  had  descended,  for  the  poor  fellows  had 
thrown  themselves  into  the  pools  in  the  shell-holes 
and  only  the  faces  and  arms  were  sticking  out. 
Then  I  recognised  the  support-trench,  which  was 
the  end  of  my  journey,  and  planted  my  Union 
Jack  as  a  signal  for  the  other  officers  who  were  to 
build  ahead  of  me.  With  my  runner  and  N.C.O. 
I  started  to  reconnoitre  my  road  back,  planting 
my  stakes  to  mark  the  route.  When  I  was  again 
at  what  had  been  our  Front  line,  I  sent  my  runner 
back  to  guide  in  my  volunteers.     What  a  day  it 


LIVING  BAYONETS  29 

was !  For  a  good  part  of  the  time  the  men  had 
to  dig,  wearing  their  gas-helmets.  You  never 
saw  such  a  mess — sleet  driving  in  our  faces,  the 
ground  hissing  and  boiling  as  shells  descended, 
dead  men  everywhere,  the  wounded  crawling 
desperately,  dragging  themselves  to  safety.  I 
saw  sights  of  pity  and  bravery  that  it  is  best  not 
to  mention,  and  all  the  time  my  brave  chaps  dug 
on,  making  the  road  for  the  guns.  Soon  through 
the  smoke  grey-clad  figures  came  in  tottering 
droves,  scorched,  battered,  absolutely  stunned. 
They  looked  more  like  beasts  in  their  pathetic 
dumbness.  One  hardly  recognized  them  as 
enemies.  All  day  we  worked,  not  stopping  to 
eat,  and  by  the  evening  we  saw  the  first  of  our 
guns  advancing.  It's  a  great  game,  this  war, 
and  searches  the  soul  out.  That  night  I  slept  in 
the  mud,  clothes  and  all,  the  dreamless  sleep  of 
the  dog-tired. 

Note. — Lieutenant  Coningsby  Dawson  was 
wounded  in  the  right  arm  at  Vimy  on  26th  June. 
He  was  evacuated  with  a  serious  case  of  gas- 
gangrene,  and  after  being  in,  first,  a  Casualty  Clear- 
ing Hospital  and  then  a  Base  Hospital,  was  sent 
back  to  England  on  8th  July,  where  he  was  in  a 
hospital  at  Wandsworth,  London,  till  the  end  of 
August.  His  arm  was  in  such  a  serious  condition 
that  at  first  it  was  thought  necessary  to  a>nputate 


30  LIVING  BAYONETS 

it.  Fortunately  after  days  of  ceaseless  care  this 
was  avoided. 

XI 

Hospital 

London 
July  8,  1917 

A  FORTNIGHT  ago  to-day  I  got  wounded.  The 
place  was  stitched  up  and  didn't  look  bad 
enough  to  go  out  with.  Three  days  later  there 
was  an  attack  and  I  was  to  be  observer.  My 
arm  got  poisoned  while  I  was  on  the  job,  and  when 
I  came  back  I  was  sent  out.  Blood-poisoning 
started,  and  they  had  to  operate  three  times  ; 
for  a  little  while  there  was  a  talk  of  amputation. 
But  you're  not  to  worry  at  all  about  me  now,  for 
I'm  getting  on  splendidly  and  there's  no  cause 
for  anxiety.  They  tell  me  it  will  take  about  two 
months  before  I  get  the  full  use  of  my  arm  back. 
Reggie  was  in  London  on  leave  and  got  his  leave 
extended — I  missed  him  by  an  hour.  J.  L.  was 
round  to  see  me  this  morning  and  is  cabling  to 
you.  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  cross  while  the 
risk  is  so  great  and  there's  a  difficulty  in  obtaining 
passports — though  you  know  how  I'd  love  to 
have  you. 

I've  missed  all  my  letters  for  the  past  fort- 
night. Please  excuse  me,  for  my  arm  gets  very 
tired,  and  I'm  not  supposed  to  use  it. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  31 

XII 

London 
July  25,  1917 

I'm  going  on  all  right,  but  can't  use  my  arm 
much  for  writing  just  at  present,  so  you  won't 
mind  short  letters,  will  you  ?  I  got  the  first 
written  by  you  since  I  was  hurt,  yesterday.  I 
am  so  glad  that  America  is  so  patriotic. 

Yesterday,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  was  called 
up  by  the  High  Commissioner  of  Canada,  and  on 
going  to  see  him  found  he  wanted  me  to 
start  at  once  on  preparing  an  important  govern- 
ment statement.  Since  I'm  forbidden  to  use  my 
arm  for  writing,  I'm  to  have  a  stenographer  and 
dictate  my  stuff  after  doing  the  interviewing. 
This  job  is  only  temporary.  And  I  think  it  is 
possible  after  I  have  tinished  it,  if  they  refuse  to 
allow  me  to  return  to  the  Front  at  once,  that  I 
may  get  a  leave  to  America.  I  wouldn't  want  to 
get  a  long  one,  as  I  am  so  anxious  to  get  back  to 
France. 

Don't  worry  at  all  about  me.  I  feel  quite 
well  now,  and  go  about  with  my  arm  in  a  sling 
and  am  allowed  out  of  hospital  to  do  this  work 
all  day.  As  soon  as  my  arm  grows  stronger  I'U 
write  you  a  good  long  letter,  but  while  it  is  as  it 
is  at  present  I  have  to  restrict  myself  to  bare 
essentials. 


32  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Oh,  did  I  tell  you  ?  I  wouldn't  have  missed 
coming  through  London  on  a  stretcher  for  pounds. 
The  flower-girls  climbed  into  the  ambulance  and 
showered  us  with  roses.  All  the  way  as  we 
passed  people  waved  and  shouted.  It  was  a 
kind  of  royal  procession,  and,  like  a  baby,  I  cried. 

XIII 

London 

August  3, 1917 

I've  just  come  back  to  my  office  in  Oxford  Circus 
from  lunching  at  the  Rendezvous.  Next  to  my 
table  during  lunch  were  two  typical  Wardour 
Street  dealers,  rubbing  their  hands  and  chortling 
over  a  cheap  buy. 

I  wonder  how  long  this  different  way  of  Hfe 
is  going  to  last.  Someone  will  snap  his  fingers 
and  heigh-ho,  presto  !  I  shall  be  back  in  France. 
This  little  taste  of  the  old  life  gives  me  a  very 
vivid  idea  of  the  sheer  glee  with  which  I  shall 
greet  the  end  of  the  war.  How  jolly  comfortable 
it  will  be  to  be  your  own  master — not  that  one 
ever  is  his  own  master  while  there  are  other  people 
to  five  for.  But  I  mean,  what  an  extraordinary 
miracle  it  will  seem  to  be  allowed  to  reckon  one's 
life  in  years  and  not  in  weeks — to  be  able  to 
look  forward  and  plan  and  build.  And  yet — 
this  is  a  confession — I  can  see  myself  getting  up 
from  my  easy-chair  and  going  out  again  quite 


LIVING  BAYONETS  33 

gladly  directly  there  is  another  war,  if  my  help  is 
needed.  There  was  a  time,  long  ago,  when  I 
used  to  regard  a  soldier  with  horror,  and  wondered 
how  decent  folk  could  admire  him  ;  the  red  of  his 
coat  always  seemed  to  me  the  blood-red  of 
murder.  But  it  isn't  the  kilhng  that  counts — 
you  find  that  out  when  you've  become  a  soldier  ; 
it's  the  power  to  endure  and  walk  bravely,  and 
the  opportimity  for  dying  in  a  noble  way.  One 
doesn't  hate  his  enemy  if  he's  a  good  soldier,  and 
doesn't  even  want  to  kill  him  from  an}^  personal 
motive — he  may  even  regret  killing  him  while 
in  the  act.  I  think  it's  just  this  attitude  that 
makes  our  Canadians  so  terrible — they  kill  from 
principle  and  not  from  malice. 

I'm  seeing  all  my  old  friends  again,  lunching 
with  one  and  dining  with  another,  and  have  been 
to  some  matinees.  But  I  can  go  to  no  evening 
performances,  because  I  have  to  be  in  the  hospital 
at  10  p.m. 

I  really  am  hoping  to  get  a  week  in  New  York 
after  this  piece  of  work  is  done,  after  which  back 
to  France  tiU  the  war  is  ended. 

XIV 

London 
August  30,  1917 

I'vi:   just   left   hospital   and   am   staying  at  this 
hotel.     You  keep  saying  in  your  letters  that  you 
3 


34  LIVING  BAYONETS 

never  heard  how  I  got  my  injury.  I  described 
it — ^but  that  letter  must  have  gone  astray.  On 
26th  June  I  was  wounded  not  by  a  shell,  but  by 
a  piece  of  an  iron  chimney  which  was  knocked 
down  on  to  my  right  arm.  I  had  it  sewn  up  and 
for  two  days  it  was  all  right.  The  third  I  went 
up  for  an  attack  and  it  started  to  swell — by  the 
time  I  came  back  I  had  gas-gangrene.  The  arm 
is  better  now  and  I'm  on  sick  leave,  though  still 
working.  They've  made  me  an  offer  of  a  job 
here  in  London,  but  I  should  break  my  heart  if 
I  could  not  go  back  to  the  Front.  But  I  think 
when  I've  finished  here  that  I  may  get  a  special 
leave,  with  permission  to  call  in  at  New  York. 
Wouldn't  that  be  grand  ? 

I  don't  want  to  raise  your  hopes  too  high,  but 
it  seems  extremely  likely  that  I  shaU  see  you 
shortly.  I  was  to-day  before  my  medical  board, 
and  they  gave  me  two  months'  home  service.  I 
have  been  promised  that  as  soon  as  a  new 
Canadian  ruling  on  home  leave  is  confirmed,  my 
application  for  leave  will  go  through. 

If  that  happens,  I  shall  cable  you  at  once  that 
I  am  coming.  It  doesn't  seem  at  all  possible  or 
true  that  this  can  be  so,  and  I'm  making  myself 
no  promises  till  I'm  really  on  the  boat.  It  would 
be  better  that  you  should  not,  also.  I'm  taking 
a  gamble  and  am  going  to  order  a  new  tunic  for 
the  occasion  this  afternoon. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  35 

It's  a  golden  afternoon  outside — the  kind 
that  turns  the  leaves  red  at  Kootenay,  with  the 
tang  of  iced  wine  in  the  air.  The  sound  of 
London  is  like  the  tumming  of  a  thousand  banjos. 
It's  good  to  be  alive,  and  very  wonderful  after  all 
that  has  happened. 

Note. — Lieutenant  Coningshy  Dawson  arrived 
at  Quebec  on  26th  September  and  came  home  on  the 
foUowing  day.  He  was  at  home  for  a  month. 
During  that  time  he  spoke  in  public  on  several 
occasions,  and  wrote  the  book  which  was  brought 
out  the  following  spring,  entitled  The  Glory  of  the 
Trenches. 

XIV 

Somewhere  on  the  Atlantic 
November  11,  1917 

Here's  the  first  letter  since  I  left  New  York, 
coming  to  you.  It's  seven  in  the  morning  ;  I'm 
lying  in  my  bunk,  expecting  any  minute  to  be 
called  to  my  bath. 

So  far  it's  been  a  pleasant  voyage,  with  rolling 
seas  and  no  submarines.  There  are  scarcely  a 
hundred  passengers,  of  whom  only  four  are 
ladies,  in  the  first  class.  The  men  are  Govern- 
ment officials,  Army  and  Navy  officers  going  on 
Cook's  Tours,  and  Naval  attaches.  The  American 
naval  men  are  an  especially  fine  type.     We  do 


36  LIVING  BAYONETS 

all  the  usual  things — play  cards,  deck-golf  and 
sleep  immoderately,  but  always  at  the  wrong 
times. 

I'm  going  back  for  the  second  time,  and  going 
back  in  the  most  placid  frame  of  mind.  I  com- 
pare this  trip  with  my  first  trip  over  as  a  soldier. 
I  was  awfully  anxious  then,  and  kept  saying 
good-bye  to  things  for  the  last  time.  Now  I 
live  day  by  day  in  a  manner  which  is  so  take-it- 
for-granted  as  to  be  almost  commonplace.  I've 
locked  my  imagination  away  in  some  garret  of 
my  mind  and  the  house  of  my  thoughts  is  very 
quiet. 

What  bricks  you  all  were  in  the  parting — there 
wasn't  any  whining — you  were  a  real  soldier's 
family,  and  I  felt  proud  of  you.  It  was  just  a 
kind  of  "  Good  luck,  old  chap  " — with  all  the 
rest  of  the  speaking  left  to  the  eyes  and  hands. 
That's  the  way  it  should  be  in  a  world  that's 
so  full  of  surprises. 

This  trip  has  done  a  tremendous  lot  for  me — 
I  shall  always  know  now  that  the  trenches  are 
not  the  whole  of  the  horizon.  Before,  when  I 
landed  in  France,  it  seemed  as  though  a  sound- 
and  sight-proof  curtain  had  dropped  behind  and 
everything  I  had  known  and  loved  was  at  an  end. 
One  collects  a  little  bit  of  shrapnel  and,  heigho, 
presto  !  one's  home  again.  On  my  second  trip, 
the  war  won't  seem  such  a  world  without  end. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  37 

To-night  I  have  to  pack — that's  wonderful, 
too.  I'm  wondering  whether  Reggie  will  be  on 
the  station.     I  shall  send  a  telegram  to  warn  him. 

XVI 

The  Ritz  Hotel.  London 
November  11,  19 17 

This  was  the  date  at  which  I  had  to  report 
back  at  Headquarters.  Actually  I  reported  back 
yesterday,  because  to-day  is  Sunday.  I  found 
that  I  had  been  detailed  not  for  France,  but  for 
work  under  the  High  Commissioner.  You  know 
what  such  news  means  to  me.  I  at  once  did  my 
best  to  light  the  order,  but  was  told  that  it  was 
a  military  order  in  which  I  had  no  choice.  I 
start  work  to-morrow  at  Oxford  Circus  House, 
but  shall  put  in  an  urgent  request  to  go  to  France. 
I  shall  at  least  try  to  get  some  limitations  to  the 
period  of  my  stay  in  England.  Even  when  I 
was  in  hospital  I  used  to  feel  that  the  last 
stretcher-case  out  of  the  lighting  was  someone  to 
be  worshipped — he  was  nearer  to  the  sacrifice 
than  I.  And  now  I'm  not  to  go  back  for  months, 
perhaps — I  shall  eat  my  heart  out  in  England. 

Reggie  fell  asleep  and  has  just  wakened.  He 
was  dreaming,  he  said,  the  best  dream  in  the 
world.  It  was  that  he  might  land  back  in  New 
York  on   20th   December  and   spend   Christmas 


38  LIVING  BAYONETS 

with  you — then  go  up  to  Kootenay  to  get  a 
ghmpse  of  his  little  green  home  among  the  snow 

and  apple  trees  and "  And  then   what  ?  " 

I  asked.  He  made  a  wry  face.  "  Go  back  to 
hunting  submarines,"  he  said  quickly.  Go  back ! 
We  all  want  to  go  back.  Why  ?  Because  it's 
so  easy  to  find  reasons  for  not  going  back  prob- 
ably. I  shall  raise  heaven  and  earth  to  be  sent 
back — and  you'll  be  glad  of  it. 

There's  something  that  I  shouldn't  tell  you 
were  I  going  back  to-morrow.  Last  week  I  met 
one  of  my  gunners  on  leave.  He  was  standing  on 
the  island  in  Piccadilly  Circus.  I  learnt  from 
him  that  every  officer  who  was  with  me  at  the 
battery  when  I  was  wounded  has  since  been 
wiped  out.  Even  some  who  joined  since  have 
been  done  for.  Three  have  been  killed,  the  rest 
wounded,  gassed,  and  the  major  has  gone  out 
with  concussion.  Among  the  killed  is  poor  S., 
the  one  who  was  my  best  friend  in  France,  You 
remember  he  had  a  young  wife,  and  his  first  baby 
was  born  in  February.  He  used  to  carry  the  list 
of  all  the  people  I  wanted  written  to  if  I  were 
killed,  and  I  had  promised  to  do  the  same  for 
him.  In  addition  to  the  officers,  many  of  the 
men  whom  I  admired  have  "  gone  west."  All 
this  was  told  me  casually  in  the  heart  of  London's 
pleasure,  with  the  taxis  and  buses  streaming  by. 

A  few  days  ago  a  pitiful  derehct  of  the  streets 


LIVING  BAYONETS  39 

crossed  my  path.  I'd  been  dining  out  in  the 
West  End  with  L.  and  P.  and  was  on  my  way 
back,  when  a  girl  stopped  me.  She  stopped  me 
for  the  usual  reason,  and  I  suppose  I  refused  her 
iiidely.  The  next  thing  I  knew  she  was  crying. 
She  said  she  had  been  walking  for  twelve  hours, 
and  was  cold  and  tired,  and  ready  to  fall  from 
weariness.  It  was  very  late,  and  I  scarcely  knew 
where  to  take  her,  but  we  found  a  little  French 
restaurant  open  in  Gerrard  Street.  On  coming 
into  the  hght,  I  discovered  that  she  had  a  little 
toy  dog  under  her  arm,  just  as  tired  of  life  as 
herself.  It  was  significant  that  she  attended  to 
the  dog's  before  her  own  needs.  We  had  to 
tempt  it  with  milk  before  it  would  eat — then 
she  set  to  work  herself  ravenously.  I  learnt  her 
story  by  bits.  She  was  a  discharged  munition 
worker,  had  strained  herself  lifting  shells,  and 
hadn't  the  brains  or  strength  for  anything  but 
the  streets.  When  she  left  the  restaurant  the 
lap-dog  was  again  tucked  beneath  her  arm.  It 
was  nearly  midnight  when  she  disappeared  in 
the  raw  chilliness  of  the  scant  electric  hght. 
People  die  worse  deaths  than  on  battle-fields. 

Wednesday. — I've  been  working  for  the  last 
three  days  at  the  Minister's,  and  still  have  no 
inkling  of  what  is  to  happen  to  me.  My  major 
walked  in  to-day  ;  he  wants  me  to  wait  till  his 
sick-leave    is   over,    after   which   we   can   return 


40  LIVING  BAYONETS 

together.  He'll  put  in  a  strong  personal  request 
for  me  to  be  allowed  to  return.  He  got  con- 
cussion of  the  brain  eight  weeks  ago  through  a 
shell  bursting  in  his  dug-out.  S.  was  wounded 
at  the  same  time,  but  didn't  go  out  till  next  day. 
He  had  got  one  hundred  yards  from  the  battery 
when  he  and  his  batman  were  killed  instantly 
by  the  same  shell. 

Reggie  wasn't  in  town  when  I  arrived.  He 
didn't  meet  me  till  Friday.  What  with  playing 
with  him  and  working  here  I  don't  get  much 
time  for  writing.  But  you'll  hear  from  me  again 
quite  soon. 

XVII 

The  Ritz,  London 
November  15,  1917 

This  hanging  round  London  seems  a  very  poor 
way  to  help  win  a  war.  I  couldn't  stand  very 
much  of  it,  however  invaluable  they  pretended 
I  was,  when  my  pals  are  dying  out  there.  Poor 
old  S.  !  He's  in  my  thoughts  every  hour  of  the 
day.  He  was  always  getting  new  photos  of  his 
little  daughter.  He  longed  for  a  Blighty  that 
he  might  see  her  again.  He  was  wounded,  but 
stopped  on  duty  for  two  days.  At  last,  only 
one  hundred  yards  down  the  trench  on  his  way 
to  the  dressing-station  a  shell  caught  him.  He 
was  dead  in  an  instant.     Before  the  Vimy  show 


LIVIN(;  BAYONETS  41 

two  of  our  chaps  in  the  mess  had  pecuHai'  dreams  : 
one  saw  D.'s  grave  and  the  other  S.'s.  Both  S. 
and  D.  are  dead.  The  effect  that  all  this  has  on 
me  is  not  what  might  be  expected — makes  me 
the  more  anxious  to  get  back.  I  hate  to  think 
that  others  are  going  sleepless  and  cold  and  are 
in  danger,  and  that  I  am  not  there.  When  the 
memor}'  comes  at  meal-times  I  feel  like  leaving 
the  table. 

It  was  ripping  to  hear  from  you  last  night. 
Your  letter  greeted  me  as  I  returned  from  the 
theatre.  We'd  been  out  with  my  major.  At 
the  theatre  we  picked  up  with  a  plucky  chap, 
named  K.,  who  belonged  to  the  same  battery 
as  B.,  to  whom,  3'ou  remember,  I  was  carrying  a 
present  from  some  girl  in  New  York.  The  present 
which  she  was  so  keen  should  reach  him  by 
Christmas  turned  out  to  be  a  neck-tie  which 
she  had  knitted  for  him.  On  asking  K.,  I  found 
out  that  B.  was  killed  on  October  31st.  It's  the 
same  story  all  the  time  so  far  as  the  i8-poundcrs 
are  concerned. 

When  Reggie  leaves  me  I'm  going  to  start  on 
another  book.  Out  to  Win,  which  is  to  be  an 
interpretation  for  England  of  the  new  spirit 
which  is  animating  America,  and  a  plea  for  a 
closer  sense  of  kinship  between  my  two  nations. 

Don't  worry  about  me,  you'll  get  a  cabled 
warning  before  1  go  to  France.     My  major  expects 


42  LIVING  BAYONETS 

to  go  back  in  a  month  or  two,  and  we've  arranged 
to  return  together  if  possible.  But  you  needn't 
get  worried — I'm  afraid  I  shall  probably  spend 
Christmas  in  London. 

XVIII 

The  Ritz,  London 
November  17,  1917 

Your  minds  can  be  at  rest  as  regards  my  safety 
for  a  few  weeks  at  least.  I've  been  collared 
for  fair,  but  I  think  I'll  manage  to  get  free  again 
presently,  I  suppose  you'U  say  that  I'm  a 
donkey  to  want  so  much  to  get  back  to  the  Front ; 
perhaps  I  am — the  war  wiU  last  quite  long  enough 
for  every  man  in  khaki  to  get  very  much  more 
of  it  than  he  can  comfortably  stomach.  The 
proper  soldierly  attitude  is  to  take  every  respite 
as  it  turns  up  and  be  grateful  for  it.  But  then 
I'm  not  a  professional  soldier.  I  think  in  saying 
that  I've  laid  my  finger  on  the  entire  reason  for 
the  splendour  of  our  troops — that  they're  not 
professional  soldiers,  but  civilian  ideahsts.  Your 
professional  soldier  isn't  particularly  keen  on 
death — his  game  is  to  live  that  he  may  fight 
another  day.  Our  game  is  to  fight  and  fight 
and  fight  so  long  as  we  have  an  ounce  of  strength 
left.  My  major  and  myself  are  all  that  are  left  of 
the  officers  in  my  battery.     A  great  many  of  our 


LIVING  BAYONETS  43 

best  men  are  gone.     They  need  us  back  to  help 
them  out. 

Here's  a  story  of  stories — one  which  answers 
all  the  questions  one  hears  asked  as  to  whether 
the  Army  doesn't  lower  a  man's  morals  and  turn 
saints  into  blackguards. 

When  we  were  on  the  Somme,  a  batch  of  very 
worthless-appearing  remounts  arrived  at  our 
wagon-lines  direct  from  England.  When  they 
were  paraded  before  us,  they  made  the  rottencst 
impression  —  they  looked  like  molly-coddles 
whom  the  Army  had  cowed.  Among  them  was  a 
particularly  inoffensive-looking  young  man  who 
had  been  a  dental  student,  whom,  if  the  Huns 
could  have  seen  him  as  a  sample  of  the  kind  of 
reinforcements  we  were  getting,  they  would  cer- 
tainly have  taken  new  courage  to  win  the  war. 
All  the  officers  growled  and  prayed  God  for  a  con- 
signment of  the  old  rough-and-tumble  knockabout 
chaps  who  came  out  of  gaols,  from  under  freight- 
trains,  and  from  lumber-camps  to  die  like  gentle- 
men— the  only  gentlemanly  thing  some  of  them  ever 
did,  I  expect — with  the  Canadian  First  Contingent. 

A  few  weeks  later  we  sent  back  to  the  wagon- 
lines  for  a  servant  to  be  sent  up  to  the  guns,  two 
of  our  batmen  having  been  killed  and  a  third 
having  been  returned  to  duty.  The  wagon-line 
officer  sent  us  up  this  fellow  with  the  following 
note:  "  I'm  sending  you  X.     He's  the  most  use- 


44  LIVING  BAYONETS 

less  chap  I  have — not  bad,  but  a  ninny.  I  hope 
he'll  suit  you."  He  didn't.  He  could  never  carry 
out  an  order  correctly,  and  seemed  scared  stiff 
by  any  N.C.O.  or  officer.  We  got  rid  of  him 
promptly.  When  he  returned  to  the  wagon-lines, 
he  was  put  on  to  all  the  fatigues  and  dirty  jobs. 

The  first  time  we  got  any  hint  that  the  chap 
had  guts  was  when  we  were  out  at  rest  at  Christ- 
mas. He'd  been  shifted  from  one  section  to 
another,  because  no  one  wanted  him.  Each  new 
Number  One  as  he  received  him  put  him  on  to 
his  worst  horses,  so  as  to  get  rid  of  him  the  more 
quickly.  The  chap  was  grooming  a  very  ticklish 
mare,  when  she  up  with  her  hind-legs  and  caught 
him  in  the  chest,  throwing  him  about  twenty 
yards  into  the  mud.  He  lay  stunned  for  a  full 
minute  ;  we  thought  he  was  done.  Then,  in  a 
dazed  kind  of  way,  he  got  upon  his  feet.  He  was 
told  he  could  fall  out,  but  he  insisted  upon  finish- 
ing the  grooming  of  his  horse.  When  the  stable 
parade  was  dismissed,  much  against  his  will  he 
was  sent  to  be  inspected  by  the  Brigade  doctor. 

The  doctor  looked  him  over  and  said,  "  I  ought 
to  send  you  out  to  a  hospital,  but  I'll  see  how 
you  are  to-morrow.  You  must  go  back  to  your 
billets  and  keep  quiet.  The  kick  has  chipped 
the  point  of  your  breast-bone." 

"It  didn't,"  said  Driver  X.,  "and  I'm  not 
going  to  lie  down." 


LIVING  BAYONETS  45 

The  doctor,  who  is  very  small,  looked  as  much 
like  the  Last  Judgment  as  his  size  would  allow. 
"You'll  do  what  you're  told,"  he  said  sharply. 
"  You'll  find  yourself  up  for  office  if  you  speak 
to  me  like  that.  If  I  told  you  that  both  your  legs 
were  broken,  they  would  be  broken.  You  don't 
know  very  much  about  the  Army,  my  lad." 

"  But  my  breast-bone  isn't  chipped,"  he  in- 
sisted. Contrary  to  orders  he  was  out  on  the 
afternoon  parade  and  was  up  to  morning  stables 
next  day  at  six  o'clock.  When  strafed  for  his 
disobedience,  he  looked  mild  and  inoffensive  and 
obstinate.  He  refused  to  be  considered,  and 
won  out.  You  can  punish  chaps  for  things  like 
that  ;  but  you  don't. 

The  next  thing  we  noticed  about  him  was  that 
he  was  learning  to  swear.  Then  he  began  to 
look  rough,  so  that  no  one  would  have  guessed 
that  he  came  from  a  social  grade  different  from 
that  of  the  other  men.  And  this  was  the  stage 
he  had  arrived  at  when  I  got  wounded  last 
summer  and  left  the  battery.  The  story  of  his 
further  progress  was  completed  for  me  this  week 
when  I  met  my  major  in  town. 

"  Who's  the  latest  hero,  do  you  think  ?  "  he 
questioned.  "  You'd  never  guess — the  dental 
student.  He  did  one  of  the  most  si)lendid  bits 
of  work  that  was  ever  done  by  an  Artillery 
driver." 


46  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Here's  what  he  did.  He  was  sent  along  a 
heavily  shelled  road  at  nightfall  to  collect 
material  from  blown-in  dug-outs  for  building  our 
new  battery  position.  He  was  wheel-driver  on 
a  G.S.  wagon  which  had  three  teams  hooked 
into  it.  There  was  a  party  of  men  with  him  to 
scout  up  the  material  and  an  N.C.O.  in  charge. 
As  they  were  halted,  backed  up  against  an  em- 
bankment, a  shell  landed  plumb  into  the  wagon, 
crippling  it  badly,  wounding  all  the  horses  and 
every  man  except  the  ex-dental  student.  The 
teams  bolted,  and  it  was  mainly  due  to  the  efforts 
of  the  wheel-driver  that  the  stampede  was 
checked.  He  must  have  used  quite  a  lot  of 
language  which  really  polite  people  would  not 
have  approved.  He  then  bound  up  all  the 
wounds  of  his  comrades — there  was  no  one  to  help 
him — and  took  them  back  to  the  field  dressing- 
station  two  at  a  time,  mounted  on  two  of  the  least 
wounded  horses.  When  he  had  carried  them  all 
to  safety,  he  removed  their  puttees  and  went 
back  alone  along  the  shelled  road  to  the  wounded 
horses  and  used  the  puttees  to  stop  their  flow 
of  blood.  He  managed  to  get  the  wagon  clear, 
so  that  it  could  be  pulled.  He  tied  four  of  the 
horses  on  behind  ;  hooked  in  the  two  that  were 
strongest,  and  brought  the  lot  back  to  the  wagon- 
lines  single-handed. 

And  here's  the  end  of  the  story.     The  O.C 


LIVING  BAYONETS  47 

put  in  a  strong  recommendation  that  he  be 
decorated  for  his  humanity  and  courage.  The 
award  came  through  in  the  record  time  of  four- 
teen days,  with  about  a  yard  of  Military  Medal 
ribbon  and  congratulations  from  high  officers  all 
along  the  line.  The  morning  of  the  day  it  came 
through  thieving  had  been  discovered  in  the 
battery,  and  a  warning  had  been  read  out  that  the 
culprit  was  suspected,  and  that  it  would  go  hard 
with  him  when  he  was  arrested.  The  decoration 
was  received  in  the  afternoon  while  harness- 
cleaning  was  in  progress.  Without  loss  of  time 
the  O.C.  went  out,  a  very  stern  look  on  his  face, 
and  had  the  battery  formed  up  in  a  hollow  square. 
There  was  only  one  thought  in  the  men's  heads 
— that  the  thief  had  been  found.  There  was  a 
kind  of  "  Is  it  I  "  look  in  their  faces.  Without 
explanation,  the  O.C.  called  upon  the  ex-dental 
student  to  fall  out.  He  fell  out  with  his  knees 
knocking  and  his  chin  wobbling,  looking  quite 
the  guilty  party.  Then  the  O.C.  commenced 
to  read  all  the  praise  from  officers  at  Brigade, 
Division,  Corps,  Army,  of  the  gallant  wheel- 
driver  who  had  not  only  risked  his  life  to  save 
his  pals,  but  had  even  had  the  fineness  of  fore- 
thought to  bind  up  the  horses'  wounds  with  the 
puttees.  Then  came  the  yard  of  Military  Medal 
ribbon,  a  i)iece  of  which  was  snipped  off  and 
pinned  on  to  the  lad's  worn  tunic.     The  battery 


48  LIVING  BAYONETS 

yelled  itself  crimson.  The  dental  student  had 
learnt  to  swear,  but  he'd  won  his  spurs.  He's 
been  promoted  to  the  most  dangerous  and  coveted 
job  for  a  gunner  or  driver  in  the  artillery;  he's 
been  put  on  to  the  B.C.  party,  which  has  to 
go  forward  into  all  the  warm  spots  to  observe 
the  enemy  and  to  lay  in  wire  with  the  infantry 
when  a  "  show  "  is  in  progress.  Can  you  wonder 
that  I  get  weary  of  seeing  the  London  buses 
trundle  along  the  well-swept  asphalt  of  Oxford 
Street  and  long  to  take  my  chance  once  more 
with  such  chaps  ? 

XIX 

London 
November  29,  1917 

Here's  such  a  November  London  day  as  no 
American  ever  imagines.  A  feeling  of  spring 
and  greenness  is  in  the  air,  and  a  glint  of  sub- 
dued gold.  This  morning  as  I  came  across 
Battersea  Bridge  it  seemed  as  though  war  could 
not  be — that,  at  worst,  it  was  only  an  incident. 
The  river  lay  below  me  so  old  and  good-humoured 
— in  front  Cheyne  Walk  comfortably  ancient 
and  asleep.  Through  the  chimneys  and  spires 
of  the  distant  city  blue  scarfs  of  mist  twisted  and 
floated.  Everything  looked  very  happy.  Boys 
— juvenile  cannon-fodder — went  whistling  along 
the  streets  ;  housemaids  leant  shyly  out  of  up- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  49 

stairs  ^\indows,  shaking  dusters  to  attract  their 
attention.  In  the  square  by  the  Chelsea  Pen- 
sioners, soldiers,  all  spit  and  polish,  were  going 
through  their  foot-drill  ;  they  didn't  look  too 
earnest  about  it — not  at  all  as  if  in  two  months 
they  would  be  in  the  trenches.  It's  the  same 
with  the  men  on  leave — they  live  their  four- 
teen days  with  cheery  common  sense  as  though 
they  were  going  to  live  for  ever.  It's  impossible, 
even  when  you  meet  the  wounded,  to  discover 
any  signs  of  tragedy  in  London.  The  war  is  re- 
ferred to  as  "  good  old  war,"  "  a  bean-feast,"  "  a 
pretty  httle  scrap,"  but  never  as  an  undertaking 
of  blood  and  torture.  Last  night  there  was 
strong  moonlight,  very  favourable  to  an  air- 
raid. When  I  bought  my  paper  this  morning, 
the  fat  woman,  all  burst  out  and  tied  in  at  the 
most  unexpected  places,  remarked  to  me  with  an 
air  of  disappointment  : 

"  They  fergot  h'us." 

"  Who  forgot  us  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  The  bloomin'  'Uns.  I  wus  h'expecting  them 
lawst  night." 

She  spoke  as  though  she'd  had  tea  ready  and 
the  kettle  boiling  for  a  dear  friend  who  had  mis- 
remembered  his  engagement.  England  has  set 
out  to  behave  as  if  there  was  no  death  ;  she's 
jolly  nearly  succeeded  in  chminating  it  from 
her  thoughts.     She's  learnt  the  lesson  the 

4 


50  LIVING  BAYONETS 

chaps  in  the  front-Hne  trenches,  and  she's  hke 
a  mother — hke  our  mother — who  has  sons  at 
the  war — she's  going  to  keep  on  smihng  so  as  not 
to  let  her  fehows  down. 

All  the  streets  are  full  of  girls  in  khaki — girls 
with   the    neatest,   trimmest   little   ankles.     The 
smartest  of  all  are  the  Flying  Corps  girls,  many 
of  whom  drive  the  army  cars  in  the  most  daring 
manner.     When  you  think  of  what  they  are  and 
were,  the  war  hasn't  done  so  badly  for  them. 
They  were  purposeless  before.     Their  whole  aim 
was  to  get  married.     They  felt  that  they  weren't 
wanted  in  the  world.     They  broke  windows  with 
Mother    Pankhurst,      Now    they've    learnt    dis- 
ciphne  and  duty  and  courage.     They'd  man  the 
trenches  if  we'd  let  them.     They  used  to  sneer 
at  our  sex  ;    whether  they  married  or  remained 
single,   quite  a  number  of  them  became  man- 
haters.     But    now — that    kind    of    civil    war    is 
ended.     Ask  the  young  subaltern  back  on  leave 
how  much  he  is  disliked  by  the  girls.     Babies 
and  home  have  become  the  fashion.     I  received 
quite  a  shock  last  Sunday  when  I  was  saluted 
by   one   of   these   girls — saluted   in   a   perfectly 
correct  and  soldierly  fashion.     The  idea  is  right ; 
if  they  outwardly  acknowledge  that  they  are  a 
part  of  the  Army,   military  discipHne  becomes 
their   protection.     But   what   a   queer,   changed 
world  from  the  world  of  sloppy  blouses,  cheap 


LIMNG  BAYONETS  51 

and  much-too-frequent  jewellery,  and  silly  senti- 
mental ogling  !  England's  become  more  alert 
and  forthright  ;  despite  the  war,  she's  happier. 
This  isn't  meant  for  a  glorification  of  war  ;  it's 
simply  a  statement  of  fact.  The  time  had  to 
come  when  women  would  become  men  ;  they've 
become  men  in  this  most  noble  and  womanly 
fashion — through  service.  They're  doing  men's 
jobs  with  women's  alacrity. 

There  is  only  one  thing  that  will  keep  me 
from  rejoining  my  battery  in  January,  and 
that's  this  American  book.  We  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  to  complete  the  picture  of 
American  determination  to  win  out,  I  ought  to 
go  on  a  tour  of  inspection  in  France.  The  Govern- 
ment is  interested  in  the  book  for  propaganda 
work.  The  extreme  worthwhileness  of  such  an 
undertaking  would  reconcile  me  to  a  postpone- 
ment of  my  return  to  the  Front — nothing  else 
will.  All  the  papers  here  are  full  of  the  details 
of  the  advance  at  Cambrai.  I  want  to  be  "  out 
there "  so  badly.  What  does  it  matter  that 
there's  mud  in  the  trenches,  and  death  round 
every  traverse,  and  danger  in  each  step  ?  It's 
the  hour  of  glorious  life  I  long  for  ;  for  such  an 
hour  I  would  exchange  all  the  sheeted  beds  and 
running  bath-taps,  not  to  mention  the  aons  of 
Cathay.  I  can  see  those  gunners  forcing  up 
their  guns  through  the  mire,  and  can  hear  the 


52  LIVING  BAYONETS 

machine  guns  clicking  away  like  infuriated  type- 
writers. The  whole  gigantic  pageant  of  death 
and  endeavour  moves  before  me — and  I'm  sick 
of  clubs  and  safety.  People  say  to  me,  "  You're 
of  more  use  here — you  can  serve  your  country 
better  by  being  in  England."  But  when  chaps 
are  dying  I  want  to  take  my  chance  with  them. 
Don't  be  afraid  I'll  be  kept  here.  /  won't.  I 
didn't  know  till  I  was  held  back  against  my  will 
what  a  grip  that  curious  existence  at  the  Front 
had  got  on  me.  It  isn't  the  horror  one  re- 
members— it's  the  exhilaration  of  the  glory. 

Cheer  up,  I'll  be  home  some  Christmas  to 
fill  your  Christmas  stocking.  It  won't  be  this 
Christmas— perhaps  not  the  next;  but  perhaps 
the  next  after  that.  The  young  gentlemen  from 
the  Navy  will  be  there  too  to  help  me.  It's  a 
promise. 

I  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  American 
Officers'  Club  by  the  Duke  of  Connaught.  This 
club  is  the  private  house  of  Lord  Leconfield. 
Other  people  have  presented  furniture,  pictures, 
and  money.  It  costs  an  American  officer  next 
to  nothing,  and  is  the  best  attempt  that  has  been 
made  to  give  a  welcome  to  the  U.S.A.  in  London. 
It's  the  most  luxurious  club  in  the  West  End  at 
present. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  53 

XX 

London 
December  10,  1917 

I  GOT  a  letter  from  the  Foreign  Office,  asking 
me  to  go  back  to  America  to  do  writing  and 
lecturing  for  the  British  Mission.  I'm  sure 
you'll  appreciate  why  I  refused  it,  and  be  glad. 
I  couldn't  come  back  to  U.S.A.  to  talk  about 
nobihties  when  their  sons  and  brothers  are  get- 
ting their  first  baptism  of  fire  in  the  trenches. 
If  I'd  got  anything  worth  saying  I  ought  to 
be  out  there  in  the  mud — saying  it  in  deeds. 
But  I've  told  Colonel  B.  that  if  ever  I  come 
out  again  wounded  I  will  join  the  British  Mission 
for  a  time.  So  now  you  have  something  to  look 
forward  to. 

I  hear  though  that  permission  will  probably 
be  granted  to  me  within  the  next  few  days  to 
start  for  France  to  go  through  the  American 
lines  and  activities.  You  can  guess  how  interest- 
ing that  will  be  to  me.  I  only  hope  they  have  a 
fight  on  while  I'm  in  the  American  lines.  I  sup- 
pose the  tour  will  take  me  the  best  part  of  a 
month,  so  I'll  be  away  from  England  for  Christ- 
mas. I  rather  hope  I'll  be  in  Paris — ever  since 
reading  Trilby  I've  longed  to  go  to  the  Madeleine 
for  Noel — which  reminds  me  that  I  must  get 
Trilby   to   read   on   the   journey.     It's  rather  a 


54  LIVING  BAYONETS 

romantic  life  that  I'm  having  nowadays,  don't 
you  think  ?  I  romp  all  over  the  globe  and,  in 
the  intervals,  have  a  crack  at  the  Germans. 

After  I  have  finished  writing  this  book  on  the 
American  activities  in  France  I  shan't  be  con- 
tent a  moment  till  I've  rejoined  my  battery,  I 
feel  a  terrible  shyster  stopping  away  from  the 
fighting  a  day  longer  than  can  be  helped.  This 
book,  which  I  intend  to  be  a  spiritual  interpreta- 
tion of  the  soul  of  America,  ought  to  do  good 
to  Anglo-American  relations  ;  so  it  seems  of 
sufficiently  vital  importance.  I  can't  think  of 
anything  that  would  do  more  to  justify  the  blot- 
ting out  of  so  many  young  Hves  than  that,  when 
the  war  is  ended,  England  and  America  should 
have  reason  to  forget  the  last  hundred  and  thirty 
years  of  history,  joining  hands  in  a  world- 
wide Anglo-Saxon  alliance  against  the  future 
murdering  of  nations.  If  I  can  contribute 
anything  towards  bringing  that  about,  the 
missing  of  two  months  in  the  trenches  will  be 
worth  it. 

I  went  to  a  "  good  luck  "  dinner  the  other  night, 
which  we  gave  to  my  major  on  the  occasion  of 
his  setting  sail  for  Canada.  Two  others  of  the 
officers  who  used  to  be  with  me  in  the  battery 
are  to  be  on  the  same  ship.  A  year  ago  in  the 
Somme  we  used  to  pray  for  a  Blighty— to-day, 
every  officer  in  our  mess  has  either  got  a  Bhghty 


LIVING  BAYONETS  55 

or  is  dead.     It  gives  one  some  idea  of  the  brevity 
of  our  glory. 

You'd  love  the  West  End  shops  were  you  here. 
I've  just  drawn  doNMi  my  blinds  on  Oxford 
Street ;  I  walked  back  by  way  of  Regent  Street 
after  lunch — all  the  windows  are  gay  and  full. 
Men  in  khaki  are  punting  their  girls  through 
the  crowds,  doing  their  Christmas  shopping. 
You  can  see  the  excited  faces  of  little  children 
everywhere.  There  doesn't  seem  to  be  much 
hint  of  war.  One  wonders  whether  people  are 
brave  to  smile  so  much  or  only  careless.  You 
hear  of  tremendous  lists  of  casualties,  but  there 
are  just  as  many  men.  It  looks  as  though  we 
had  man-power  and  resources  to  carry  on  the 
war  interminably.  There's  only  one  class  of 
persoa  who  is  fed-up — and  that's  the  person 
who  has  done  least  sacrificing.  The  person  who 
has  done  none  at  all  is  a  nervous  wreck  and 
can't  stand  the  strain  much  longer.  But  ask  the 
fighting  men — they're  perfectly  happy  and  con- 
tented. Curious  !  WTien  you've  given  every- 
thing, you  can  always  give  some  more. 

This  may  reach  you  before  Christmas,  though 
I  doubt  it.  If  it  does,  be  as  merry  as  we  shall 
be,  though  absent. 


56  LIVING  BAYONETS 

XXI 

London 
December  lo,  1917 

I  HOPE  you  feel  as  I  do  about  my  refusal  of 
Colonel  B.'s  offer  to  send  me  back  to  America 
on  the  British  Mission.  I  was  also  approached 
to-day  to  do  press  work  for  the  Canadians.  It 
seems  as  though  everyone  was  conspiring  to  throw 
tempting  plums  in  my  way  to  keep  me  from  re- 
turning to  the  Front.  I  don't  know  that  I'm 
much  good  as  a  soldier  ;  probably  I'm  very  much 
better  as  a  writer ;  but  it's  as  though  my  soul, 
my  decency,  my  honour  were  at  stake — I  must 
get  back  to  the  Front.  The  war  is  going  to  be 
won  by  men  who  go  back  to  the  trenches  in  the 
face  of  reason  and  common  sense.  If  I  had  a  leg 
off  I  should  try  for  the  Flying  Corps.  I  may  be 
a  fool  in  the  Front  line,  but  I  won't  be  finished 
as  a  fighting  man  till  I'm  done.  They  can 
keep  all  their  cushy  jobs  for  other  chaps — I  want 
the  mud  and  the  pounding  of  the  guns.  It 
doesn't  really  matter  if  one  does  get  killed,  pro- 
vided he's  set  a  good  example.  Do  you  remember 
that  sermon  we  heard  Dr.  Jowett  give  about  St. 
Paul  at  Lystra,  going  back  after  they  had  stoned 
him?  "  Back  to  the  stones  " — that  expresses  me 
exactly.  I  hate  shell-fire  and  discomfort  and 
death  as  much  as  any  other  man.     But  I'd  rather 


LIVING  BAYONETS  57 

lose  everything  than  have  to  say  good-bye  to 
my  standard  of  heroism.  I  don't  want  to  kill 
Huns  particularly,  but  I  do  want  to  prove  to 
them  that  we're  the  better  men.  I  can't  do  that 
by  going  through  oratorical  gymnastics  in  America 
or  by  wTiting  racy  descriptions  of  the  Canadians' 
bravery  for  the  international  press.  I  shall  be  less 
than  nothing  when  I  return  to  France — merely 
subaltern  whose  life  isn't  very  highly  valued. 
But  in  my  heart  I  shall  know  myself  a  man. 
There's  no  one  understands  my  motive  but  you 
three,  who  have  most  to  lose  by  my  crij)])lement 
or  death.  All  my  friends  over  here  think  me  an 
ass  to  throw  away  such  chances — they  say  I'm 
economically  squandering  myself  in  the  place 
where  I'm  least  trained  to  do  the  best  work.  I 
know  they  talk  sense  ;  but  they  don't  talk 
chivalry.  If  every  man  took  the  first  chance 
offered  him  to  get  out  of  the  catastrophe,  where 
would  the  Huns'  offensive  end  ? 

You've  probably  been  writing  hard  at  The 
Father  of  a  Soldier,  and  saying  all  that  you  would 
like  to  say  to  me  in  that.  I'm  most  anxious 
to  see  the  manuscript  of  it.  If  you  please,  how 
could  the  son  of  the  man  who  wrote  that  book 
accept  a  cushy  job  ? 

I  wonder  if  you've  reached  the  point  yet  where 
you  don't  think  that  dying  matters  ?  I  suspect 
you  have.     You  remember  what  Roosevelt  said 


58  LIVING  BAYONETS 

after  seeing  his  last  son  off,  "If  he  comes  back 

he'll  have  to  explain  to  me  the  why  and  how." 

That's  the  Japanese  spirit — honour  demands  when 

a  man  returns  from  battle  that  he  can  give  good 

reasons  why  he  is  not  dead.      Others,  his  friends 

and  comrades,  are  dead  ;  how  does  he  happen  to 

be  living  ?     In  that  connection  I  think  of  Charlie 

S.,  lying  somewhere  in  the  mud  of  Ypres,  with 

an  insignificant  cross  above  his  head.     He  won 

a  dozen  decorations  which  were  not  given  him. 

He  had  a  baby  whom  he  had  only  seen  once. 

He  was  my  pal.     Why  should  I  live,  while  he  is 

dead  ?     I  can  always  hear  him  singing  in  the  mess 

in   a  pleasant   tenor  voice.     We  used  to   share 

our  affections  and  our  troubles.     He  was  what 

the    Canadians    call   "a   white   man."     I   can't 

see   myself  living  in  comfort  while  he  is  dead. 

It's  odd  the  things  one  remembers  about  a  man. 

We  got  the  idea  in  the  Somme  that  oil  on  the 

feet  would  prevent  them  from  becoming  frozen. 

One  time  when  Charlie  was  going  up  forward  we 

hadn't  any  oil,  so  he  used  brilliantine.     It  smelt 

of  violets,  and  we  made  the  highest  of  game  of 

him.     Poor  old  Charlie,  he  doesn't  feel  the  cold 

now ! 

I'm  afraid  I've  written  a  lot  of  rot  in  this 
letter — I've  talked  far  too  much  of  a  host  of 
things  which  are  better  left  unsaid.  But  I  had 
to — I   wanted  to  make  quite  certain  that  you 


LIVING  BAYONETS  59 

wouldn't  blame  me  for  refusing  safety.  I've 
relieved  myself  immensely  by  getting  all  of  this 
off  my  chest. 

XXII 

London 
December  17,  1917 

I'm  waiting  for  Eric,  and,  while  waiting,  propose 
to  tell  you  the  story  of  my  past  few  days.  I 
think  when  you've  come  to  the  end  of  my  account 
you'll  agree  that  I've  been  mixing  my  drinks 
considerably  with  regard  to  the  personalities 
whose  acquaintance  I  have  made. 

On  Friday  evening  I  was  invited  to  dinner 
by  Lieutenant  C,  the  American  Navy  man  with 
whom  I  crossed  in  November.  I  met — whom 
do  you  think  ? — George  Grossmith,  Leslie  Henson, 

Julia  James,  Modge  Saunders,  and  Lord  C . 

I  may  say  that  Lord  C is  not  a  member  of 

the  Gaiety  Company,  though  I  seem  to  have 
included  him.  The  occasion  was  really  the 
weekly  dinner  given  by  the  American  Officers' 
Club  ;  the  Gaiety  Company  was  there  to  entertain. 
I  think  it  is  tyjiical  of  England's  attitude  towards 
the  American  Army  that  people  from  such 
different  walks  of  life  should  have  been  present 

to    do    the   U.S.A.   honour.       Lord    C is    a 

splendid  type  of  old-fashioned  courtier,  with  a 
great,  kindly,  bloodhound  face.  He  had  ensigns 
and  ofTicers  of  whatsoever  rank  brought  to  him. 


6o  LIVING  BAYONETS 

and  spoke  to  them  with  the  fine  manly  equality 
of  the  true-bred  aristocrat.  It  was  amusing 
to  see  the  breezy  American  boys  quite  unem- 
barrassed, most  of  them  unaware  of  Lord  C 's 

political  eminence,  exchanging  views  in  the 
friendliest  of  fashions,  while  the  old  gentleman, 
keeping  seated,  leaning  forward  on  his  stick  with 
one  hand  resting  attentively  on  a  young  fellow's 
arm,  expressed  his  warm  appreciation  of  America's 
eagerness. 

Grossmith  was  in  the  uniform  our  boys  wear 
— that  of  a  lieutenant  in  the  R.N.V.R.  Leslie 
Henson  is  now  a  mechanic  in  the  motor-transport 
by  day  and  a  Gaiety  star  in  the  evenings.  He 
says  that  it  costs  him  much  money  to  cure  the 
ache  which  the  Army  gives  to  his  back — but 
he  continues  to  do  his  "  bit  "  by  day  and  to 
amuse  Tommies  home  on  leave  in  the  evenings. 

Next  day,  Saturday,  I  went  down  to  Bath 
to  meet  Raemaekers,  the  Dutch  cartoonist.  Mr, 
Lane  was  our  host.  Raemaekers  is  a  great  man. 
On  the  journey  I  tried  to  picture  him.  I  saw 
him  as  a  pale-faced  man,  with  lank  black  hair 
and  a  touch  of  the  Jew  about  him.  I  rather  ex- 
pected to  find  him  worn  and  slightly  more  than 
middle-aged,  with  nervous  hands  and  hollow 
eyes.  I  reminded  myself  that  of  the  world's 
artists,  he  was  the  only  one  who  had  risen  to 
the  sheer ness  of  the  occasion.      He  expresses  the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  6i 

conscience  of  the  aloof  cosmopolitan  as  regards 
Germany's  war-methods.  England,  incurably 
good-humoured,  has  only  Bairnsfather's  comic 
portrayals  of  Old  Bill  to  place  beside  this  indig- 
nant Dutchman's  moral  hatred  of  Hun  cruelty. 
From  the  station  I  went  to  the  Bath  Club  ;  there 
I  met  not  at  all  what  I  had  imagined.  He  looks 
hke  a  Frans  Hals  burgher,  comfortable,  with  a 
high  complexion,  a  small  pointed  beard,  chestnut 
hair,  and  searching  grey  eyes.  His  charity  of 
appearance  belies  him,  for  his  eyes  and  mouth 
have  a  terrific  purpose.  His  hands  are  the  hands 
of  a  fighting  man  which  crush.  You  would  pass 
him  in  the  street  as  unremarkable  unless  he  looked 
at  you — his  eyes  are  daggers  which  stop  you  dead. 
There  were  four  of  us  at  lunch — he  sat  at  my 
right  and  we  talked  like  a  river  in  flood.  He's 
just  back  from  America,  thrilled  by  the  Americans' 
unimpassioned,  lawful  thoroughness.  He  had 
found  something  akin  to  his  own  tempera- 
ment in  the  nation's  genius — the  same  capacity 
to  brush  aside  facetiousness  in  a  crisis,  and  to 
attain  a  Hebrew  prophet's  faculty  for  hatred. 
One  doesn't  want  to  laugh  when  women  He  dead 
in  the  ash-pits  of  Belgium.  I  have  been  with 
him  many  hours  and  have  scarcely  seen  him 
smile,  and  yet  his  face  is  kindly.  As  you  know, 
the  Kaiser  had  set  a  price  upon  his  head.  His 
death  would  mean  more  to  the  Hun  than  the 


62  LIVING  BAYONETS 

destruction  of  many  British  Divisions.  He 
has  pilloried  the  Kaiser's  beastliness  for  all 
time.  When  future  ages  want  to  know  what  the 
Kaiser  said  to  Christ,  they  will  find  it  all  in 
the  thousand  Raemaekers'  sketches.  Traps  have 
been  laid  for  his  capture  from  time  to  time. 
Submarines  have  been  dispatched  with  orders 
to  take  him  ahve.  He  knows  what  awaits  him 
if  such  plans  should  meet  with  success — a  Unger- 
ing,  tortured  death ;  consequently  he  travels 
armed,  and  has  promised  his  wife  to  blow  his 
brains  out  the  moment  he  is  captured.  We 
talked  of  many  things — of  the  Hague  and  H. 
among  other  things.  He  knew  the  P.'s,  and 
drew  a  sketch  of  Mr.  P.  on  the  tablecloth  with 
his  pencil.  I  tried  to  purchase  the  tablecloth 
that  I  might  send  it  to  America,  but  the  club- 
secretary  was  before  me. 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  to  the  railway-station 
and  spoke  with  a  porter  who  was  pushing  a 
barrow — Henry  Chappell,  who  wrote  "  The  Day" 
— the  first  war-poet  of  1914.  As  luck  would 
have  it,  it  was  Saturday,  the  day  upon  which 
John  Lane  had  brought  out  his  volume  of  poems ; 
it  was  rather  pathetic  to  find  him  carrying  on 
with  his  humble  task  on  the  proudest  afternoon 
of  his  hfe.  I  told  him  how  I  had  seen  his  poem 
pasted  up  in  prominent  places  all  the  way  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.     He  smiled  in  a  patient 


LIVING  BAYONETS  63 

fashion,  and  said  that  he  had  heard  about  it.  I 
understand  that  he  made  one  hundred  pounds  out 
of  this  poem  and  gave  it  all  to  the  Red  Cross.  A 
gentleman,  if  you  want  to  lind  one  !  I  asked 
him  if  he  didn't  look  forward  to  promotion  now. 
He  shook  his  head  gravely — he  hked  portering. 
At  parting  I  shook  his  hand,  but,  when  I  had 
dropped  it,  he  touched  his  cap — and  touched 
my  heart  in  the  doing  of  it. 

On  Sunday  I  was  back  in  town.  Eric  turned 
up  this  morning,  looking  gallant  and  smiling,  with 
an  exceedingly  glad  eye.  He's  just  the  same  as 
he  always  was,  discontented  with  his  job  because 
he  thinks  it's  too  safe  and  trying  to  find  one 
more  dangerous.  We're  going  to  have  a  great 
time  together,  unless  I  get  my  marching  orders 
from  the  Foreign  Office. 

I  lunched  with  Raemaekers  at  Claridge's  to- 
day and  have  just  come  back.  He's  an  elemental 
morahst,  encased  in  a  burgher's  exterior.  He 
affects  me  with  a  sense  of  restrained  power.  One 
is  surprised  to  see  him  eating  hke  other  men. 
How  I  wish  that  I  could  detest  as  he  detests  ! 
And  yet  he  has  heart  in  plenty.  He  told  me  a 
story  of  a  French  battalion  going  out  to  die. 
The  last  soldier  stepped  out  of  the  ranks  towards 
his  colonel,  who  was  weeping  for  his  men  who 
would  not  come  back.  Flinging  his  arms  about 
his  commanding  ofiicer,  he  kissed  him  and  said, 


64  LIVING  BAYONETS 

"  Do  not  fear,  my  Colonel ;   we  shall  not  disgrace 
you."     He  has  an  eye  for  magnanimity,  that  man. 


XXIII 

London 
December  31,  1917 

This  foggy  London  morning  early  your  three 
letters  from  5th  to  i8th  December  arrived.  I 
jumped  out  of  bed,  ht  the  gas,  retreated  under 
the  blankets,  and  devoured  them,  leaning  on 
my  elbow. 

This  is  the  last  day  of  the  old  year — a  quaint 
old  year  it  has  been  for  all  of  us.  I  commenced 
it  quite  reconciled  to  the  thought  that  it  would 
be  my  last ;  and  here  I  am,  while  poor  Charhe  S. 
and  so  many  other  fellows  whom  I  loved  are 
dead.  It  only  shows  how  very  foolish  it  is 
to  anticipate  trouble,  for  the  last  twelve  months 
have  been  the  very  best  and  richest  of  my  life. 
If  I  were  to  die  now,  I  should  feel  that  I  had  at 
least  done  something  with  my  handful  of  years. 

I'd  Hke  to  have  another  glimpse  of  America 
now  that  in  the  face  of  reverses  she  has  grown 
sterner.  It's  certain  at  last  that  there'll  be  a  lot 
of  American  boys  who  won't  come  back.  They're 
going  to  be  real  soldiers,  going  to  go  over  the  top 
and  to  endure  all  the  fierce  heroisms  of  an  attack. 
It's  cruel  to  say  so,  but  it's  better  for  America's 


LIVING  BAYONETS  65 

soul  that  she  should  have  her  taste  of  battle 
after  all  the  shouting. 

On  Saturday  F.  R.  came  to  see  us.  He's  home 
on  leave.  He  and  P.  and  I  sitting  down  together 
after  all  the  years  that  have  intervened  since 
we  were  at  Oxford  together  !  As  F.  expressed 
it,  bUnking  through  his  spectacles,  "  Doesn't  it 
seem  silly  that  I  should  be  dressed  up  hke  this 
and  that  you  should  be  dressed  like  that  ?  "  He 
went  out  in  January  as  a  second  lieutenant,  and 
returned  commanding  his  battalion.  God  moves 
in  a  mysterious  way,  doesn't  He  ?  One  can't 
help  wondering  why  some  should  "  go  west  "  at 
once  and  others  should  be  spared.  Bob  H.,  who 
was  also  with  us  at  Oxford,  as  you  will  remember, 
lasted  exactly  six  days.  The  first  day  in  the 
trenches  he  was  wounded,  but  not  sufliciently 
to  go  out.     The  sixth  day  he  was  killed. 

Did  I  tell  you  that  there's  a  nerve  hospital 
near  here  crowded  with  nerve-shattered  babies 
on  one  floor  and  nerve-shattered  Tommies  on 
the  next  ?  The  babies  are  all  dressed  in  red  and 
the  Tommies  in  the  usual  hospital  blue.  Each 
day  the  shell-shocked  chaps  go  up  to  visit  the 
cliildren  ;  the  moment  the  door  opens  and  the 
blue  figures  appear,  the  little  red  crowd  stretch 
out  their  arms  and  cry,  "  My  soldier  !  My  sol- 
dier !  "  for  each  Tommy  has  his  own  particular 
pet.  When  a  child  gets  a  nervous  attack,  it  is 
5 


66  LIVING  BAYONETS 

often  only  the  one  particular  soldier  who  can 
do  the  soothing.  Who'd  think  that  men  fresh 
from  the  carnage  could  be  so  tender !  And 
people  say  that  war  makes  men  brutal.     Humph  1 

XXIV 

A  French  Port 
January  3,  1918 

Here  I  am  again  in  France  and  extraordinarily 
glad  to  be  here.  I  feel  that  I'm  again  a  part 
of  the  game — I  couldn't  feel  that  while  I  was 
in  London.  I  landed  here  this  morning  and 
arrive  in  Paris  to-night.  The  crossing  was  one 
of  the  quietest,  I  know  a  lot  of  people  didn't 
lie  down  at  all,  and  stiU  others  slept  with  their 
clothes  on.  Like  a  sensible  fellow  I  crept  into 
my  berth  at  9  p.m.,  and  slept  like  a  top  till 
morning.  If  we'd  been  submarined  I  shouldn't 
have  known  it. 

I  feel  tremendously  elated  by  the  thought  of 
this  new  adventure,  and  intend  to  make  the 
most  of  it.  As  you  know,  nothing  would  have 
persuaded  me  to  delay  my  return  to  the  Front 
except  an  opportunity  for  doing  work  of  these 
dimensions.  I  really  do  believe  that  I  have  the 
chance  of  a  lifetime  to  do  work  of  international 
importance,  I  want  to  make  the  Americans 
feel  that  they  have  become  our  kinsmen  through 
the  magnitude  of  their  endeavour.     And  I  want 


LIVING  BAYONETS  67 

to  make  the  British  shake  off  their  reticence  in 
applauding  the  magnanimity  of  America's  en- 
thusiasm. 

It's  been  snowing  here  ;  but  I  don't  feel  cold 
because  of  the  warmth  inside  me.  The  place 
where  I  am  now  is  one  of  the  pleasure-haunts 
which  Eric  and  I  visited  together  in  that  golden 
summer  of  long  ago.  Little  did  I  think  that  I 
should  be  here  next  time  in  such  belligerent 
attire  and  on  such  an  errand.  Life's  a  queer 
kaleidoscope.  But,  oh,  for  such  another  summer, 
with  the  long  secure  peace  of  July  days,  and 
the  whole  green  world  to  wander  !  One  doubts 
whether  El  Dorado  will  ever  come  again. 

I  see  the  girl-soldiers  of  England  everywhere 
nowadays.  A  reinforcing  draft  crossed  over 
with  me  on  the  steamer — high  complexions 
and  laughing  faces,  trim  uniforms  and  tiny 
ankles.  They're  brave  !  It's  a  pity  we  can't 
give  them  a  chance  of  just  one  crack  at  the 
Huns.  But  they  have  to  stop  behind  the  lines 
and  drive  lorries,  and  be  good  girls,  and  beat 
typewriters.  Their  little  girl-ofhcers  are  mighty 
dignified.  What  a  gallant  world  !  I  wouldn't 
have  it  otherwise. 

For  me  the  New  Year  is  starting  well.  I  face 
it  in  higher  spirits  than  any  of  its  predecessors. 
And  well  I  may,  for  I  didn't  expect  to  be  alive 
to  greet  191 8.     I  hope  you  are  all  just  as  much 


68  LIVING  BAYONETS 

on  the  crest  of  the  wave  in  your  hopes  and  antici- 
pations. Nothing  can  be  worse  than  some  of 
the  experiences  that  He  behind — and  that's 
some  comfort.  Nothing  can  be  more  chivahous 
than  the  opportunities  which  he  before  us. 

So  here's  good-bye  to  you  from  France  once 
again. 

XXV 

Paris 
January  8,  19 18 

Here  I  am  in  Paris,  starting  on  my  new  adven- 
ture of  writing  the  story  of  what  the  Americans 
are  doing  in  the  war.  I  left  England  on  2nd 
January,  which  was  a  Wednesday,  and  arrived 
here  Thursday  evening.  As  you  know,  while  I 
was  in  the  Front  line  I  had  very  little  idea  of  what 
France  at  war  was  like.  One  crossed  from  Eng- 
land, clambered  on  a  military  train  with  all  the 
windows  smashed,  had  a  cold  night  journey,  and 
found  himself  at  once  among  the  shell-holes.  I 
was  very  keen  on  seeing  what  Paris  was  like ; 
now  that  I've  seen  it,  it's  very  difficult  to  de- 
scribe. It's  very  much  the  same  as  it  always 
was — only  while  its  atmosphere  was  once  cham- 
pagne, now  it  is  a  strong,  still  wine.  As  in  Eng- 
land, only  to  a  greater  extent,  women  are  doing 
the  work  of  men.  The  streets  are  full  of  the 
wounded — not  the  wounded  with  well-fitted 
artificial  limbs  that  you  see  in  London,  but  with 


LIVING  BAYONETS  69 

ordinary  wooden  stumps,  etc.  Our  English 
wounded  are  always  gay  and  laughing — deter- 
mined to  treat  the  war  as  a  humorous  episode  to 
the  end.  The  French  wounded  are  grave,  afflicted, 
and  ordinary.  I  think  the  Frenchman,  with  an 
emotional  honesty  of  which  we  are  incapable,  has 
from  the  first  viewed  the  war  as  a  colossal  Cal- 
vary, and  has  seen  it  against  the  historic  sky- 
line of  a  travailing  world.  Never  by  speech  or 
gesture  has  he  disguised  the  fact  that  he,  as 
an  individual,  is  engaged  in  a  fore-ordained  and 
unparalleled  adventure  of  sacrifice.  The  Eng- 
lishman, self-conscious  of  his  own  heroic  gallantry, 
cloaks  his  fineness  with  pretended  indifference 
and  has  succeeded  in  deceiving  the  world.  Om: 
sportsmanship  in  the  face  of  death  impresses 
more  complex  nations  as  irrcligion.  So  while 
London  is  outwardly  gayer  than  ever,  Paris 
has  a  stiff  upper  lip,  a  look  of  sternness  in  its 
eyes,  and  very  little  laughter  on  its  mouth. 
By  nine-thirty  in  the  evening  every  restaurant  is 
closed,  and  the  streets  are  empty  till  the  soldiers 
on  leave  troop  out  from  the  theatres. 

As  for  the  food,  I  have  seen  no  shortage  in 
France  as  yet.  You  can  get  plenty  of  butter  and 
sugar,  whereas  in  London  margarine  is  rare  and 
sugar  is  doled  out.  The  talk  of  France  being  ex 
haustcd  is  all  rubbish ;  you  can  feel  the  muscles 
of  a  great  nation  struggling  the  moment  you  land. 


70  LIVING  BAYONETS 

I  have  had  a  most  kindly  and  helpful  recep- 
tion from  the  American  Press  Division.  They 
have  realized  with  the  usual  American  quickness 
of  mind  the  importance  of  what  I  propose  to  do. 
One  of  their  oihcers  starts  out  with  me  to-night 
on  my  first  tour  of  military  activities.  It  will 
take  about  five  days.  I  then  return  to  Paris  to 
write  up  what  I  have  seen,  and  afterwards  set 
out  again  in  a  new  direction.  If  I  take  the  proper 
advantage  of  my  opportunities,  I  ought  to  get  an 
amazingly  interesting  lot  of  material. 

Saturday  I  was  lucky  enough  to  secure  a  car, 
and  went  the  round  of  my  introductions,  to 
the  British  Embassy  and  your  friends  from 
Newark. 

I've  been  to  two  theatres.  The  audiences  were 
composed  for  the  most  part  of  soldiers  on  leave 
— American,  British,  Canadian,  Australian,  Bel- 
gian, French,  with  the  merest  sprinkling  of 
civilians.  Sunday  I  walked  through  the  Luxem- 
bourg, most  of  the  galleries  of  which  are  closed. 
Afterwards  I  walked  in  the  Gardens  and  watched 
the  Parisians  sliding  on  the  ice.  For  the  moment 
they  forgot  they  were  at  war,  and  became 
children.  There  were  little  boys  and  girls, 
soldiers  with  their  sweethearts,  fat  old  men  and 
women,  all  running  and  pushing  and  sliding  and 
falling  and  chattering.  I  thought  of  Trilby  with 
her  grave,  kind  eyes.     Then  I  walked  down  the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  71 

Boiile  Miche  to  Notre  Dame,  where  women  were 
praying  for  their  dead. 

To-day  Paris  is  under  snow,  and  again  the  child 
spirit  has  asserted  itself.  Soldiers  and  sailors  are 
pelting  one  another  with  snowballs  in  the  streets, 
and  Jupiter  continues  to  pluck  his  geese  and  send 
their  feathers  drifting  down  the  sky. 

This  time  last  year  I  was  marching  into  action 
with  temperature  of  104  degrees,  and  you  were 
reaching  London,  wondering  whether  I  was  truly 
coming  on  leave.  A  queer  year  it  has  been ;  in 
spite  of  all  our  anticipations  to  the  contrary, 
we're  still  alive.  I  wish  we  were  to  meet  again 
this  year,  and  we  may.  We  know  so  little.  As 
VVhitcomb  Riley  says  in  complete  acceptance  of 
human  fortuitousness,  "  No  child  knows  when  it 
goes  to  sleep." 

XXVI 

Paris 
January  13,  1918 

About  an  hour  ago  I  got  into  Paris  from  my 
first  trip.  I've  been  where  M.  and  I  spent  our 
splendid  summer  so  many  years  ago,  only  now 
the  river  is  spanned  with  ice  and  the  country  is 
a  grey-sage  colour.  From  what  I  can  see  the 
Americans  are  preparing  as  if  for  a  war  that  is 
going  to  last  for  thirty  years.  America  is  in  the 
war  literally  to  her  last  man  and  her  last  dollar  ; 


72  LIVING  BAYONETS 

when  her  hour  comes  to  strike,  she  will  be  Hke  a 
second  England  in  the  fight. 

I  made  my  tour  with  an  officer  who  was  with 
Hoover  three  years  in  Belgium,  and  who  before 
that  was  a  student  in  Paris.  As  a  consequence, 
he  speaks  French  like  a  native.  Every  detail  of 
my  trip  was  arranged  ahead  by  telephone  and 
telegram  ;  automobiles  were  waiting.  There  is 
no  pretence  about  the  American  Army.  My  rank 
as  lieutenant  is,  of  course,  quite  inadequate  to  the 
task  I  have  undertaken.  But  the  American  high 
officer  carries  no  side  or  swank.  Having  pro- 
duced my  credentials,  I  am  seated  at  the  mess 
beside  generals  and  allowed  to  ask  any  questions, 
however  searching.  Everyone  I  have  met  as  yet 
is  hats  off  to  the  English  and  the  French — they  go 
out  of  their  way  to  make  comparisons  which  are 
in  their  own  disfavour  and  unjust  to  themselves. 
I  have  been  making  a  particular  study  of  their 
transport  facilities  and  their  artillery  training. 
Both  are  being  carried  out  on  a  magnificently 
thorough  scale.  I  undertake  to  assert  that  they 
will  have  as  fine  artillery  as  can  be  found  on 
the  Western  Front  by  the  time  they  are  ready. 
I  certainly  never  saw  such  painstaking  and 
methodical  training. 

As  you  know,  the  phase  of  the  war  that  I 
am  particularly  interested  in  is  the  closeness  of 
international  relations  that  will  result  when  the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  73 

war  is  ended.  The  tightening  of  bonds  between 
the  French,  Americans  and  English  can  be  daily 
witnessed  and  felt.  The  Americans  are  loud  in 
their  praise  of  their  French  and  British  instructors 
— the  instructors  are  equally  proud  of  their 
pupils.  On  the  street,  in  hotels  and  trains,  the 
three  races  hobnob  together. 

I  came  back  to-day  with  a  French  artillery  and 
cavalry  officer — splendid  fellows.  We  had  fought 
together  on  the  Somme,  we  discovered,  and 
had  occupied  the  same  Front,  though  at  separate 
times,  at  Vimy.  The  artilleryman  was  a  young 
French  noble,  and,  as  only  noblemen  can  these 
days,  had  a  car  waiting  for  him  at  the  station 
He  insisted  on  taking  me  to  my  hotel,  and  we 
parted  the  most  excellent  friends. 

I  have  two  days  in  which  to  write  up  my  ex- 
periences, and  on  Tuesday  I  shall  set  out  on  a 
tour  in  a  new  direction.  So  much  I  am  able  to 
tell  you ;  the  rest  will  be  in  my  book  when  it  is 
pubUshed. 

This  time  last  year  we  were  together  in  London 
— how  long  ago  it  seems  and  sounds  !  Years  are 
longer  and  of  more  value  than  they  once  were. 
This  year  I'm  here.  Next  year  where  ?  This 
time  next  year  the  war  will  not  be  ended,  I'm 
certain,  nor  even  the  year  after  that,  perhaps.  The 
more  we  feel  our  strength,  the  more  we  are  called 
upon  to  suffer,  the  sterner  will  become  our  terms. 


74  LIVING  BAYONETS 

It's  nearly  eleven,  my  dear  ones,  and  time  that 
I  was  asleep,  I  have  Henri  Bordeaux's  story  of 
The  Last  Days  of  Fort  Vaux  beside  me — it's 
most  heroic  reading.  What  shall  we  do  when  the 
gates  of  heroism  grow  narrow  and  peace  has  been 
declared  ?  Something  spiritual  will  have  gone 
out  of  life  when  the  challenge  of  the  horrible  is 
ended. 

XXVII 

Paris 

January  19,  1918 
I'm  expecting  to  go  to  American  Headquarters 
on  Tuesday  and  to  see  something  of  work  im- 
mediately behind  the  lines.  I  find  what  I  am 
doing  exceptionally  interesting,  and  hope  to  do  a 
good  book  on  it. 

Wherever  one  goes  the  best  men  one  meets 
are  Hoover's  disciples  from  Belgium,  They  tell 
extraordinary  stories  of  the  heroism  of  the  patriots 
whom  they  knew  there — people  by  the  score  who 
duplicated  Miss  Cavell's  courage  and  paid  the 
penalty.  Their  experience  of  Hun  brutality  has 
somehow  dulled  their  sense  of  horror — they  speak 
of  it  as  something  quite  commonplace  and  to  be 
expected. 

On  Friday  I  saw  Miss  Holt's  work  for  the 
blind.  She  bears  out  for  France  all  that  I  have 
said  about  the  amazing  sharing  of  the  wounded 
in  England,     One  man  in  her  care  was  not  only 


LIVING  BAYONETS  75 

totally  blind,  but  he  had  also  lost  both  arms. 
In  the  hospital  there  were  men  less  grievously 
mutilated  than  himself,  who  hardly  knew  how  to 
endure  their  loss.  For  the  sake  of  the  cheeriness 
of  his  example,  he  used  to  go  round  the  ward 
with  gifts  of  cigarettes,  which  he  almost  thought 
he  lit  for  the  men  himself,  for  he  used  to  say  to 
Miss  Holt  before  undertaking  such  a  journey, 
"  You  are  my  hands." 

We,  in  England,  and  still  less  in  America,  have 
never  approached  the  loathing  which  is  felt  for 
the  Boche  in  France.  Men  spit  as  they  utter  his 
name,  as  though  the  very  word  was  foul  in  the 
mouth.  WTierever  you  go  lonely  men  or  women 
are  pointed  out  to  you  ;  all  of  his  or  her  family 
are  behind  the  German  lines.  We  think  we  have 
suffered,  but  we  have  not  sounded  one  fathom  of 
this  depth  of  agony.  On  every  hand  I  hear  that 
the  French  Army  is  stronger  than  ever,  better 
equipped  and  more  firm  in  its  moral.  As  an 
impassioned  Frenchman  said  to  me  yesterday, 
his  eyes  blazing  as  he  banged  the  table,  "  They 
shall  not  pass.     I  say  so — and  I  am  France." 

In  the  face  of  all  this  I  do  not  wonder  that  the 
French  misunderstand  the  easy  good-humour  with 
which  we  English  go  out  to  die.  In  their  eyes 
and  with  the  throbbing  of  their  wounds,  this  war 
is  a  matter  for  neither  good-humour  nor  sports- 
manship, but  only  for  the  indignant,  inarticulate 


76  LIVING  BAYONETS 

wrath  of  a  Hebrew  god.  If  every  weapon  was 
taken  from  their  hands  and  all  the  young  men 
were  gone,  with  clenched  fists  those  who  were 
left  would  smite  and  smite  to  the  last.  It  is 
fitting  that  they  should  feel  this  way,  but  I'm 
glad  that  our  English  boys  can  still  laugh  while 
they  die. 

And  now  I'm  going  out  on  the  Boulevards  to 
get  lunch. 

XXVIII 

Paris 
January  30,  1918 

Yesterday  on  my  return  to  Paris  I  found  all 
your  letters  awaiting  me — a  real  big  pile  which 
took  me  over  an  hour  to  read.  The  latest  was 
written  on  New  Year's  Day  in  the  throes  of  coal 
shortage  and  intense  cold.  Really  it  seems  ab- 
surd that  you  should  be  starved  for  warmth  in 
America.  Last  week  I  was  within  eighteen 
kilometres  of  the  Front  line  staying  in  a  hotel  as 
luxurious  as  the  Astor,  with  plenty  of  heat  and  a 
hot  bath  at  midnight  in  a  private  bathroom. 
All  the  appointments  and  comforts  were  perfect  ; 
booming  through  the  night  came  the  perpetual 
muttering  of  the  guns.  There  were  troops  of  all 
kinds  marching  up  for  an  attack  ;  the  villages 
were  packed,  but  there  was  no  disorganization. 

Well,  I've  had  a  great  trip  this  last  time.     I 
went  to  see  refugee  work — and  saw  it.     There 


LIVING  BAYONETS  77 

were  barracks  full  of  babies — the  youngest  only 
six  days'  old.  There  were  very  many  children 
who  have  been  re-captured  from  the  Huns. 

To-morrow  I  start  off  for  the  borders  of  Swit- 
zerland to  see  the  repatriated  French  civilians 
arrive.  Then  I  go  with  the  head  of  the  Red 
Cross  for  a  tour  to  see  the  reconstruction  work  in 
the  devastated  districts.  When  that  is  finished, 
I  return  to  London  to  put  my  book  together. 
I  hope  to  get  back  to  my  battery  about  the  end 
of  March. 

What  a  time  I  have  had.  A  year  ago  it  would 
have  seemed  impossible.  I've  motored,  gone  by 
speeders  and  trains  to  all  kinds  of  quiet  and 
ancient  places  which  it  would  never  have  entered 
my  head  to  visit  in  peace  times.  The  American 
soldier  is  everywhere,  striking  a  strange  note  of 
modernity  and  contrast.  He  sits  on  fences 
through  the  country-side,  swinging  his  legs  and 
smoking  Bull  Durham,  when  he  isn't  charging  a 
swinging  sack  with  a  bayonet.  He  is  the  particu- 
lar pal  of  all  the  French  children. 

I'm  now  due  for  a  day  of  interviews  and  shall 
have  to  ring  off.  I  rose  at  seven  this  morning 
so  as  to  write  this  letter.  At  the  moment  I'm 
sitting  in  a  deep  arm-chair,  with  an  electric  lamp 
at  my  elbow.  It's  an  awful  war  !  In  less  than 
two  months  I'll  be  sitting  in  clothes  that  I  haven't 
taken  off  for  a  fortnight — the  mud  will  be  my 


78  IJVING  BAYONETS 

couch  and  the  flash  of  the  guns  my  reading  lamp. 
It's  funny,  but  up  there  in  the  discomfort  I  shall 
be  ten  times  more  happy. 

XXIX 

Paris 
February  13,  1918 

I've  not  heard  from  you  for  two  weeks — which 
is  no  fault  of  yours.  There  was  a  delay  in  getting 
passports — so  I'm  only  just  back  from  the 
devastated  districts  and  get  on  board  the  train 
for  London  to-night.  It's  exactly  six  weeks  to- 
day since  I  left  England  on  this  adventure, 

I've  done  a  good  many  things  since  last  I  wrote 
you.  Did  I  tell  you  that  among  others  I  visited 
Miss  Holt's  work  for  the  bHnd  ?  I  can  think  of 
nothing  which  does  more  to  call  out  one's  sym- 
pathy than  to  sit  among  those  sightless  eyes, 
I  have  talked  about  courage,  but  these  men  leave 
me  appalled  and  silent.  They  are  covered  with 
decorations — the  Legion  d'Honneur,  etc.  They 
all  have  their  stories.  One,  after  he  had  been 
wounded  and  while  there  was  stiU  a  chance  of 
saving  his  sight,  insisted  on  being  taken  to  his 
General  that  he  might  give  information  about  a 
German  mine.  When  his  mission  was  completed 
his  chance  of  ever  seeing  again  was  ended. 

On  the  way  back  I  saw  Joffre  walking,  I  now 
know  why  they  call  him   Papa  Joffre.     He  is 


LIVING  BAYONETS  79 

huge,  ungainly,  and  white  and  kind.  Somehow 
he  made  me  think  of  a  puppy — he  had  such  an 
ciir  of  surprise.  There  was  a  premature  touch  of 
spring  in  the  tree-tops.  The  grand  old  man  of 
France  was  aware  of  it — he  looked  as  though  it 
were  his  first  spring,  so  young  in  an  ancient  sort 
of  way.  He  was  stopping  all  the  time  to  watch 
the  sparrows  flying  and  the  shrubs  growing  misty 
with  greenness.  For  all  his  braid  and  decorations 
he  looked  like  an  amiable  boy  of  splendid  size. 

And  then  I  went  to  Amiens.  Wlien  I  was  in 
the  line,  it  was  always  my  dream  to  get  there. 
Our  senior  ofticers  used  to  play  hooky  in  Amiens 
and  come  back  with  wonderful  tales  of  sheeted 
beds  and  perpetual  baths.  I  got  there  toward 
evening  and  was  met  by  a  British  Staff  olhcer 
with  a  car.  After  dinner  I  escaped  him  and 
wandered  through  the  crooked  streets,  encounter- 
ing everywhere  my  dearly  beloved  British  Tommy, 
straight  out  of  the  trenches  for  a  few  hours' 
respite.  As  I  passed  estaminets  I  could  hear 
concertinas  being  played  and  voices  smging. 
It  was  London  and  heroism  and  home-sickness 
all  muddled  up  together  that  these  voices  sang. 
And  they  sang  just  one  song.  It  is  the  first  song 
I  heard  in  France,  when  the  war  was  very  much 
younger.  When  the  war  is  ended,  I  expect  it 
will  be  the  last.  If  the  war  goes  on  for  another 
thirty  years,  our  Tommies  will  be  singing  it — 


So  LIVING  BAYONETS 

wheezing  it  out  on  concertinas  and  mouth-organs, 
in  rain  and  sunshine,  on  the  Une  of  march,  on 
leave  or  in  their  cramped  billets.  Invincible 
optimists  that  they  are — so  ordinary,  so  ex- 
traordinary, so  good-humoured  and  mild !  I 
peered  in  through  the  estaminets'  windows  of 
Amiens — there  they  sat  with  their  equipment 
off,  their  elbows  on  the  table  and  their  small  beer 
before  them.  And  here's  what  they  sang,  as  so 
many  who  are  dead  have  sung  before  them  : 

"  Aprh  la  guerre  flni 
Tous  les  soldats  parti, 
Mademoiselle  'ave  a  souvenir — 
Apres  la  guerre  fini." 

After  all  my  wandering  along  French  and 
American  fronts,  I  was  back  among  my  own 
people. 

My  final  night  in  Amiens  was  equally  typical. 
I  went  to  the  officers'  club  and  found  a  sing-song 
in  progress.  There  was  a  cavalry  major  there 
who  had  been  in  the  show  at  Cambrai.  He 
was  evidently  a  hunting-man,  for  he  kept  on 
getting  off  his  hunting  calls  whenever  things 
threatened  to  become  dull.  Most  of  the  music 
was  rag-time,  which  offended  him  very  much. 
"  Let's  sing  something  English,"  he  kept  on 
saying.     So  we  gave  him  "John  Peel,"  "  Hearts 


LIVLNG  BAYONETS  8i 

of  Oak,"  "  Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  Eyes" — 
and  he  went  to  bed  happy. 

I  had  a  good  fast  car,  so  using  Amiens  as  our 
base  we  struck  into  the  Aisne,  Oise,  and  Somme, 
covering  a  good  man^'  kilometres  a  day.  In 
these  districts  the  Huns  were  masters  a  year 
ago — and  now  we  are  ploughing.  The  enemy 
withdrew  from  these  districts  last  March.  Nearly 
all  the  demolition  is  wilful,  and  very  little  of  it  is 
due  to  shell-fire.  In  town  after  town  scarcely  a 
house  is  left  standing — everything  is  gutted. 
The  American  Red  Cross  is  trying  to  do  something 
to  alleviate  this  distress.  It  was  in  a  ruined 
chateau  I  found  the  Smith  College  Unit  and, 
much  to  my  surprise,  Miss  W.  from  Newark, 
who  had  just  received  a  letter  from  M.  She  was 
wanting  to  go  to  Amiens,  so  we  put  her  in  the 
car  and  took  her  back  with  us. 

I'm  longing  to  get  to  England  to  read  all  your 
letters.  I  feel  quite  out  of  touch.  To-morrow 
I  shall  be  in  London. 

I  was  in  Paris  when  the  Huns  were  overhead, 
and  saw  one  of  them  come  down.  The  calmness 
of  the  people  was  amazing.  There  was  no  dashing 
for  the  M6tro  or  other  funk  holes ;  only  a  con- 
temptuous cheeriness.     The  French  are  great. 


82  LIVING  BAYONETS 


XXX 

London 
February  i8,  1918 

To-day  I  have  made  a  start  on  my  book  Qui 
to  Win,  and  miss  you  very  much.  It's  quite 
a  difficult  thing,  I  find,  to  really  concentrate  on 
literary  work  in  a  strange  environment.  I  wish 
I  could  take  a  magic  powder  and  find  myself  back 
in  my  own  little  study,  with  my  own  little  family, 
till  the  book  is  written. 

Heaps  of  people  I  met  in  France  were  returning 
to  America,  and  promised  to  telephone  you  to 
say  they  had  seen  me. 

I  stumbled  across  a  most  inspiring  conversation 
which  I  overheard  the  other  day,  and  which, 
if  I  had  time,  I  would  work  into  a  story,  entitled 
"His  Bit." 

I  was  sitting  in  front  of  two  women  on  a  bus. 

"Well,"  said  one,  "when  they  told  me  that 
Phil  was  married,  you  could  'ave  knocked  me 
darn  wiv  a  feather." 

It  transpired  that  Phil  was  a  C  3  class  man,  no 
good  for  active  service.  He  had  met  a  girl, 
turned  out  into  the  streets  by  her  parents  because 
she  was  about  to  have  a  child  by  a  soldier  now 
dead,  whom  she  had  not  married.  Phil,  without 
asking  her   any  questions,   did  his   "bit" — led 


LmXG  BAYONETS  83 

her  off  and  married  her  right  away  because  he 
vvas  sorry  for  her. 

"And  she  ain't  a  wicked  girl,"  said  one  of 
the  good  ladies  on  the  bus.  "  She  didn't  mean 
no  harm.  She  was  just  soft-like  to  a  Tommy 
on  leave,  I  expect.  It  was  'ard  lines  on  'er. 
But  that  Phil — my  goodness,  he'll  make  'er  a 
good  'usband.  Is  the  child  born?  I  should  just 
fink  so.  'E's  that  proud,  she  might  be  'is  own 
da\\i:er.  'E  carries  'er  raund  all  over  the  plaice, 
Lord  bless  yer.  And  'is  wife's  people,  they  can't 
make  too  much  of  'im.  No,  'e's  not  strong — 
a  C  3  man.     I  thought  I  told  yer.     She  'as  ter 

work  to  'elp  'im  along.     But  between  'em 

There!  I'm  'ats  h'orf  to  Phil.  They're  a 
bloomin'  pair  of  love-birds." 

I  like  to  think  of  Phil,  don't  you?  I  like  to 
know  that  chaps  like  him  are  in  the  wodd.  He 
couldn't  fight  the  Germans  ;  but  he  could  play 
the  man  by  a  dead  soldier. 

That's  a  little  bit  of  real  life  to  help  you  along. 
Now  I'm  going  to  knock  off  and  rest. 

XXXI 

London 
February  24,  19 18 

I'm  not  spending  much  time  on  letter-writing 
just  at  present.  From  morning  till  night,  just 
as   I  did  when  I  was  writing   The  Glory  of  the 


84  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Trenches,  I  shove  away  at  my  new  book.  I  am 
most  anxious  to  get  it  creditably  finished  and 
soon.  The  weather  is  getting  quite  ripping  for 
the  Front  and  I'm  keen  to  be  back  in  time  for 
the  spring  offensive. 

You'll  be  pleased  to  know  that,  under  my 
encouragement,  your  youngest  son  has  broken 
out  into  literature.  He  did  it  while  I  was  away 
in  France.  And  the  result  is  extraordinarily  fine. 
He's  managed  to  fling  the  spirit  of  his  job  on 
paper — it  lives  and  gets  you.  When  they  are 
asked  at  the  end  of  a  patrol  what  they  have  been 
doing,  they  answer,  "  Pushing  Water  " — so  that 
he's  made  that  answer  his  title. 

When  I  took  the  manuscript  to  W.,  he  said : 
"  But  haven't  you  another  brother  ?  What's  he 
doing  ?  Where's  his  manuscript  ?  And  what 
about  your  mother  and  sister  in  America,  and 
your  sister  in  Holland  ?  Don't  tell  me  that 
they're  not  all  writing  ?  " 

At  that  moment  I  felt  a  deep  sympathy  for 
Solomon,  who  I'm  sure  must  have  been  a  pub- 
lisher. Only  a  publisher  would  say  so  tiredly : 
"  Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end." 

On  Tuesday  another  beastly  birthday  is  due 
me — but  I  shan't  say  anything  about  it.  I 
shall  commence  my  new  lease  of  life  with  a  meat- 
card  in  my  hand  and  no  prospect  of  being  really 
fully  fed  till  I  get  back  to  France.     For  the  first 


LIVING  BAYONETS  85 

time  England  is  feeling  a  genuine  shortage.  She 
isn't  particularly  annoyed  at  being  rationed,  but 
the  worry  you  have  over  finding  out  how  much 
you  are  allowed  to  eat  and  where  and  when, 
causes  people  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  My  own 
impression  is  that  there  is  plenty  of  food  in 
England  at  present,  but  that  we  want  to  conserve 
it  in  order  to  be  able  to  lend  America  our  tonnage. 

XXXII 

London 

March  31, 1919 

Below  my  window,  as  I  write,  I  can  hear  the 
stirring  of  the  Strand.  Newsboys  are  calling  the 
latest  papers,  motor-horns  hoot,  and  the  milhon 
feet  of  London,  each  pair  with  their  own  separate 
story,  clatter  against  the  pavement.  What  a 
world  !  How  do  we  ever  get  tired  of  living  ! 
Every  day  there  are  new  faces,  bringing  new 
affections  and  adventure,  new  demands  for 
tenderness  and  strength.  These  footsteps  will 
go  on.  They  will  never  grow  quiet.  A  thousand 
years  hence  they  will  clatter  along  these  pave- 
ments through  the  miracle  of  re-creation.  Why 
do  we  talk  of  death  and  old  age  ?  It  is  not  true 
that  we  terminate.  Even  in  this  world  the  river 
in  whose  movement  we  have  our  part  still  goes 
on — the  river  of  opinions,  of  effort,  of  habitation. 
The  sound  of  us  dies  faint  up  the  road  to  the 


86  LIVING  BAYONETS 

listener  who  stands  stationary  ;  but  the  fact  that 
at  last  he  ceases  to  hear  us  does  not  mean  that 
we  have  ceased  to  exist — only  that  we  have 
gone  farther.  How  arbitrary  we  are  in  our  petty 
prejudices  against  immortality  !  God  hears  more 
distinctly  the  travellers  to  whom  men  have  ceased 
to  listen.  Nothing  to  me  is  more  certain  than  that 
we  go  on  and  on,  drawing  nearer  to  the  source  of 
our  creation  through  the  ages.  Just  as  I  came 
home  to  you  after  so  many  risks,  such  suffering, 
elation,  bloodshed,  so  through  the  unthinkable 
adventure  of  time  we  journey  home  to  our  Maker. 
Going  out  of  sight  is  sad,  as  are  all  partings.  But 
I  can  bear  to  part  now  in  a  way  that  I  could  not 
before  I  saw  the  heavens  open  in  the  horror  of 
war.  I  have  ceased  to  be  afraid  of  the  unguess- 
able,  and  better  stiU,  I  have  lost  my  desire  to 
guess.  Not  to  stand  still — to  press  onwards 
like  soldiers — that  is  all  that  is  required  of  us. 
I  have  heard  men  talk  about  world-sorrows,  but 
if  you  trace  them  back,  our  sorrows  are  all  for 
ourselves — they  are  a  personal  equation.  To 
develop  one's  personality  in  the  remembering  of 
others  seems  to  me  to  be  the  only  road  to  happi- 
ness. All  this  talk — why  ?  Because  of  the  foot- 
steps beneath  my  window  ! 

The  leave  train  has  just  arrived  at  Charing 
Cross  from  France.  It  steamed  across  the 
Thames  with  the  men  singing  "  The  Land  where 


LIVING  BAYONETS  87 

the  Bluebells  grow."     There  was  laughter  and 
longing  in  their  singing. 

XXXIII 

Bath 

March  24,  1918 

Here  I  am  with  Mr.  Lane,  spending  the  week- 
end. It's  a  wonderful  spring  Sunday — no  hint 
of  war  or  anything  but  flowers  and  sunshine. 
An  hour  ago  I  halted  outside  the  newspaper  office 
and  read  the  latest  telegrams  of  the  great  German 
offensive.  It  seemed  like  the  autumn  of  1914, 
reading  of  death  and  not  being  a  part  of  it. 
They'll  not  take  very  long  in  letting  me  get  back 
to  my  battery  now.  One's  curiously  egotistic — 
I  feel,  if  only  I  were  out  there,  that  with  my 
little  bit  of  extra  help  everything  would  go  well. 
Yesterday  we  went  to  Batheaston  Manor,  a  line 
old  Jacobean  house,  to  tea — the  kind  of  house 
that  one  has  dreamt  of  possessing.  There  were 
high  elms  with  rooks  cawing  and  green  lawns 
with  immaculately  gravelled  paths.  Inside  there 
were  broken  landings  and  rooms  with  little  stairs 
descending,  and  panelling,  and  pictures — every- 
thing for  which  one  used  to  care.  The  late 
Belgian  Minister  to  England,  Count  de  la  Laing, 
was  there — a  sad,  courteous  man.  As  we  walked 
back  with  him  to  Bath  along  the  canal,  he  re- 
marked  casually   that    all    the  art   treasures   in 


88  LIVING  BAYONETS 

his  chateau  outside  of  Brussels  had  been  shipped 
to  Germany. 

We  spent  the  afternoon  seeing  the  King's 
pictures — mostly  Gainsboroughs  —  which  have 
been  brought  to  Bath  from  Buckingham  Palace. 
From  here  we  went  to  tea  with  an  old  lady,  Miss 
Tanner,  who  rode  on  her  lonesome  through  Persia 
many  years  ago  and  consequently  has  gained  a 
Lady  Hester  Stanhope  reputation  and,  what  is 
more  important,  a  splendid  selection  of  Eastern 
rugs  and  silverwork.  After  that  we  walked  home 
by  way  of  the  great  crescent  which  forms  the  scene 
in  The  School  for  Scandal. 

An  odd  day  to  dodge  in  between  experiences  of 
European  war  !  I  have  to  pinch  myself  awake  to 
remember  what  is  happening  at  this  moment  in 
the  Front-line  trenches.  Probably  within  a  few 
weeks  I  shall  be  there — and  feeling  very  much 
more  contented  with  myself  than  I  do  now. 

XXXIV 

London 
March  31,  1918 

Eric  is  with  me.  I  am  very  glad  to  have  him 
for  my  last  days  in  England,  and  I  do  hope  that 
Reggie  may  get  here  in  time  to  see  me.  He's 
ordered  south  in  two  weeks'  time,  but  I  may  be 
in  France  by  then.  I  report  at  Canadian  Head- 
quarters to-morrow,  and  will  probably  be  sent 


LIVING  BAYONETS  89 

straight  do\^Ti  to  camp,  and  from  there  to  France 
within  two  weeks. 

Have  you  seen  General  Currie's  stirring  message 
to  the  Canadians,  saying  that  he  expects  them 
to  die  to  a  man  if,  by  so  doing,  they  can  push  the 
Huns  back  ?  This  summer  will  see  the  biggest 
of  all  the  battles.  I'm  wildly  excited  and  longing 
to  get  back.  There'll  be  some  of  the  old  glamour 
about  this  new  fighting — it's  all  in  the  open. 
We've  got  away  from  trench  warfare  at  last. 
The  beasts  are  all  over  the  country  which  we 
fought  for  and  have  recaptured  since  1916, 
They've  destroyed  for  a  second  time  all  the 
reconstruction  work  that  I  saw  in  the  devastated 
areas.  I'm  wondering  if  all  the  girls  got  out  in 
time.     There  were  so  many  American  girls  there. 

Don't  you  dear  people  get  down  in  the  mouth 
when  I'm  again  at  the  Front.  It's  where  I've 
wanted  to  be  for  a  great  many  months — ever 
since  I  recovered.  To  be  able  to  go  back  now, 
when  there's  really  something  doing,  is  very 
fitting.  I  should  have  been  wasting  my  time, 
perhaps,  during  the  inactivity  of  the  winter,  if  I'd 
been  sitting  in  dug-outs  when  I  might  have  been 
writing  Out  to  Win.  But  no  man,  whatever 
his  capacities,  is  wasting  his  time  in  fighting  at 
this  hour  of  crisis.  I've  been  made  ashamed  by 
the  excuses  I've  heard  put  up  for  various  quitters 
who  have  taken  bomb-proof  jobs.     I'm  in  terror 


90  LIVING  BAYONETS 

lest  I  should  be  confused  with  such.  Heaven 
knows,  I'm  no  fonder  of  killing  or  of  being  killed 
than  anyone  else,  but  there  are  times  when 
everything  decent  responds  to  the  demand  of 
duty.  I  shall  absolutely  be  immensely  happy  to 
be  a  man  again,  taking  my  chances.  I  know  that 
you  will  be  glad  for  me.  If  you  hadn't  known 
for  certain  that  I  was  going  back,  you'd  have 
been  making  excuses  for  me  in  your  hearts  during 
these  last  five  months.  So  smile  and  be  proud. 
And  whatever  happens,  go  on  being  proud  and 
smiUng.  Your  job  is  to  set  an  example.  That's 
your  contribution  towards  winning  the  war. 

It's  past  midnight,  and  I  go  to  camp  to-morrow. 
I'll  let  you  have  a  cable  when  I  go  to  the  Front — 
so  you  needn't  be  nervous. 

XXXV 

In  Camp.    England 
April  4,  1918 

I  GOT  down  here  last  night  and  reported  back 
this  morning.  I  found  the  General  of  my  Divi- 
sion had  already  appUed  for  me,  so  I  am  going 
back  to  my  old  Brigade  at  the  beginning  of  this 
week — on  the  Sunday,  I  think.  To-day  is 
Wednesday,  so  I  haven't  lost  much  time  in  getting 
into  action.  Probably  I  shall  go  up  to  London 
to-morrow  for  a  two  days'  leave  and  meet  Eric. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  91 

There's  just  a  chance  that  Reggie  may  be  with 
us  as  well,  for  I've  sent  him  a  telegram  to  say 
that  I'm  going  to  France. 

And  now,  as  you  may  imagine,  I  am  at  last 
happy  and  self-respecting.  I'm  going  to  be  a 
part  of  the  game  again  and  not  a  pretence- 
soldier.  What's  more,  I'm  going  to  go  straight 
into  a  real  battle — the  biggest  of  the  war.  It's 
really  splendid  and  I  feel  childishly  elated. 

Well,  I've  had  a  run  for  my  money  if  any 
man  ever  had.  The  good  times  in  England, 
France,  and  America  will  be  worth  remembering 
when  I'm  again  in  the  fighting.  I  contrast  in 
my  mind  my  present  mood  with  that  of  the  first 
time  when  I  went  out — I  was  very  much  afraid 
then  ;  now  I'm  extraordinarily  happy.  I've 
learnt  to  appreciate  the  privilege  of  being  in  the 
glory  and  the  heroism.  I'm  more  pleased  than 
if  I  had  won  a  decoration,  that  my  Colonel  should 
have  asked  for  my  return  at  the  first  possible 
moment.  It  proves  to  me  something  which 
one  often  doubts — that  I  really  am  some  good 
out  there. 

Keep  your  tails  up,  my  dear  ones,  and  don't 
get  worried.  This  line  is  only  to  let  you  know 
the  good  news. 


92  LIVING  BAYONETS 

XXXVI 

London 
April  6,  1 91 8 

I'm  the  happiest  person  in  London  to-day  at  the 
thought  of  my  return.  This  is  quite  unreason- 
able, when  I  sit  down  to  calculate  the  certain 
discomfort  and  danger.  I  can't  explain  it,  unless 
it  is  that  only  by  being  at  the  Front  can  I  feel 
that  I  am  living  honourably.  I've  been  self- 
contemptuous  every  minute  that  I've  been  out 
of  the  line.  I  began  to  doubt  myself  and  to 
wonder  whether  all  my  protestations  of  wanting 
to  get  back,  were  not  a  camouflage  for  cowardice. 
I  can  prove  to  myself  that  they  weren't  now. 
"  The  Canadians  will  advance  or  die  to  a  man," 
were  the  words  that  General  Currie  sent  to  his 
troops.  Isn't  it  magnificent  to  be  included  in 
such  a  chivalrous  adventure  ?  I  don't  think 
you'll  read  about  the  Canadians  retiring. 

Whatever  happens  I've  had  a  grand  romance 
out  of  life — there's  nothing  of  which  to  complain. 
I  owe  destiny  no  grudge.  The  world  has  been 
kind.  I  don't  think  I  shall  get  killed  ;  I  never 
have  thought  that.  But  if  I  am,  it  will  be  as 
fine  an  ending  to  a  full  day's  work  as  heart  could 
desire. 

I  think  I'm  younger  than  I  ever  was.  I  no 
longer  know  satiety.     The  job  in  front   of  me 


LIVING  BAYONETS  93 

fills  all  my  soul  and  mind.  I'm  going  to  prove 
to  myself  and  others  that  my  books  are  not  mere 
heroic  sentiment.  Going  out  a  second  time, 
despite  the  chances  to  hang  back,  will  give  a 
sincerity  to  what  I've  been  trying  to  say  to 
America.  Heaps  of  people  would  think  it  brutal 
to  want  so  much  to  go  where  men  are  being 
slaughtered — but  it  isn't  the  slaughtering  that 
attracts,  it's  the  \nnning  of  the  ideal  that  calls  me. 
C.  has  command  of  my  battery  now.  He's  a 
fine  chap.  You  remember  how  he  left  London 
before  his  leave  was  up,  "  because  he  wanted  to 
be  among  men."  That's  the  sort  he  is,  and  I 
admire  him. 

XXXVII 

London 
April  14,  1 91 8 

We're  sitting  together  in  the  little  flat  at  Batter- 
sea,  and  Reggie  is  with  us.  It's  Sunday  after- 
noon. To-morrow  morning  early  I  set  out  for 
France.  The  little  party  wanted  me  to  sleep 
here  to-night  so  that  they  could  get  up  about 
6  a.m.  and  see  me  off.  I  wouldn't  have  that. 
So  we're  going  to  say  good-bye  comfortably 
to-night  and  the  boys  will  sleep  with  me  at  a 
hotel  just  outside  the  station. 

You  can't  guess  how  glad  I  am  at  the  thought 
of  going  back.     I  was  afraid  I  should  never  be  a 


94  LIVING  BAYONETS 

fighting  man  again.  Now  that  I'm  once  more  to 
be  allowed  to  do  my  bit  I  feel  extraordinarily 
grateful.  I  have  the  silly  feeling  that  just  one 
more  man  might  make  all  the  difference  at  such 
a  crisis,  and  I'm  jealous  lest,  when  so  many  are 
being  called  upon  for  an  exaggerated  display  of 
heroism,  I  should  lose  my  chance.  I  know  now 
why  soldiers  sing  when  they  go  out  to  war — ■ 
they're  so  proud  that  they  have  been  chosen  for 
the  sacrifice. 

The  boys  came  down  to  camp  with  me  and 
lived  near  to  the  camp.  I  took  an  anti-gas 
defence  course  before  re-joining  in  France. 
Friday  night  we  came  up  to  town  and  we've  had 
a  very  jolly  time. 

Well,  dears,  we've  lived  a  happy  crowded  life 
since  I  was  wounded,  and  we've  each  one  of  us 
learnt  more  about  the  glory  of  this  undertaking. 

XXXVIII 

France 
April  21,  191 8 

I've  been  back  at  the  Front  six  days.  This  is 
the  first  opportunity  I  have  had  to  write.  I  left 
England  last  Monday,  having  spent  Saturday 
and  Sunday  in  London  with  the  boys.  Major 
H.  came  up  to  give  me  a  send-off  and  we  had  a 
very  gay  time.  Saturday  evening,  after  dinner 
and  a  theatre,  we  returned  to  Battersea  and  all 


LIVING  BAYONETS  95 

found  beds  in  one  or  other  of  the  flats.  On 
Sunday  evening  we  slept  at  a  hotel  next  to  the 
station  so  that  I  might  be  sure  of  catching  the 
early  morning  train.  We  managed  to  get  a  room 
with  three  beds  in  it,  and  so  kept  all  together  as  in 
the  old  days.  By  5  a.m.  we  were  up  and  stirring. 
P.  and  L.  walked  in  on  us  as  we  were  having 
breakfast,  and  S.  met  us  on  the  platform.  They 
all  seemed  quite  assured  that  they  would  never, 
never  see  me  again — which  makes  me  smile. 
I  suppose  they  all  had  visions  of  grey  waves  of 
Germans  deluging  our  infantry  by  force  of  numbers, 
while  the  gunners  were  left  far  in  front,  trying 
to  stem  the  tide.  That  is  what  we  all  hope  for. 
It's  the  kind  of  chance  we  dream  about  ;  but  it 
hasn't  happened  yet. 

Monday  afternoon  I  was  in  France  and  slept 
at  the  Base  that  night.  Early  Tuesday  morning 
I  was  on  the  move  again,  passing  Red  Cross 
trains  packed  with  wounded  and  trucks  crammed 
with  ordnance.  I  couldn't  help  comparing  this 
return  to  the  Front  with  my  first  trip  up.  We 
had  a  good  time  playing  cards  and  recalling  the 
old  fights  —  we  were  like  schoolboys  coming 
back  for  the  holidays.  There  wasn't  one  of  us 
who  wasn't  wildly  excited  at  the  thought  of  being 
a  part  of  the  game  again.  This  was  rather 
strange,  if  you  come  to  consider  it,  for  each  of  us 
had  been  wounded  at  least  once  and  knew  the 


96  LIVING  BAYONETS 

worst  of  what  war  could  do  to  us — yet  fear  was 
the  emotion  most  remote  from  us.  We  were 
simply  and  sheerly  glad  to  be  going  into  the  thick 
of  it ;  our  great  fear  had  been  that  our  fighting 
days  were  ended. 

By  2  p.m.  we  were  dumped  out  at  a  town 
through  which  I  used  to  ride  last  summer.  Here 
we  had  to  report  to  the  Provost  Marshal  for 
further  transport  orders.  He  told  me  that  I 
should  have  to  go  to  the  Corps  Reinforcement 
Camp.  I  didn't  intend  to  do  that,  so  waited  till 
he  was  engaged  on  the  phone  and  then  made  my 
escape.  Taking  the  baggage  I  could  carry,  I 
beat  my  way  back  to  my  old  battery  on  foot  and 
in  lorries.  I  was  just  coming  into  the  wagon- 
lines  when  I  met  Major  C,  who  now  commands 
us.  I  think  he  had  been  lonely  for  some  of  the 
old  faces  ;  he  went  wild  with  delight.  I  had 
a  magnificent  welcome  back.  On  the  spur  of  the 
moment  he  made  me  a  present  of  his  own  charger 
and  took  me  up  to  the  guns  with  him,  where  we 
arrived  in  time  for  a  very  late  tea,  within  thirty- 
six  hours  of  my  leaving  England. 

The  day  after  that  I  went  forward  to  do  my 
24-hour  spell  at  the  observing  station.  When  I 
saw  my  first  Hun  after  so  long  an  absence,  I  felt 
more  like  hugging  him  than  trying  to  kill  him. 
Of  course  I  had  to  do  the  latter,  and  had  a  very 
nice  little  strafe.     I  wrote  you  a  fine  long  letter 


LIVING  BAYONETS  97 

up  there  and  somehow  lost  it.     So  this  is  my 
second  attempt. 

Don't  get  nervous  about  me.  Everything  is 
quite  all  right  with  us  and  I'm  having  a  real 
holiday  after  my  feverish  literary  spasms.  But 
a  lot  of  familiar  faces  are  absent. 

XXXIX 

France 
April  22,  19 18 

You  would  hardly  believe  our  peaceful  state  of 
mind  unless  you  could  drop  in  on  us  for  an  hour. 
You,  in  America,  are  evidently  very  worked  up 
about  us,  and  picture  us  as  in  desperate  conditions. 
Don't  worry,  we've  got  our  tails  up  and  are 
happy  as  sand-boys.  There's  nothing  of  the 
grimly  set  faces  about  our  attitude  such  as  you 
imagine.  We're  too  confident  to  be  grim  ;  war 
is  actually,  from  our  point  of  view,  a  gigantic 
lark.  It  must  sound  silly  to  you,  I  know,  but  I 
love  to  hear  the  screaming  of  the  shells  in  the 
darkness  and  the  baying  of  the  guns.  It's  hke 
a  pack  of  wolves  being  chased  through  the  night 
by  bloodhounds. 

I  hadn't  been  back  two  days  before  they  got 
the  rumour  at  the  wagon-lines  that  I  was  wounded 
— a  little  previous,  I  thought  it.  I  call  that 
wishing  a  blighty  on  me. 

I've  just  come  back  from  a  trip  across  one  of 
7 


98  LIVING  BAYONETS 

our  old  battlefields.  We're  in  the  Hun  support- 
trenches,  behind  us  is  his  Front  hne,  then  No 
Man's  Land  with  its  craters  and  graves,  and 
behind  that  the  Front  line  from  which  we  jumped 
off.  You  can  trace  everything  plainly  and 
follow  the  entire  attack  by  the  broken  wire 
and  blown-in  dug-outs.  We're  still  filled  with 
amused  contempt  for  the  Hun  on  our  part  of 
the  Front. 

We  were  discussing  chaplains  the  other  day — 
the  way  some  of  them  have  failed  us  in  this  war. 
One  of  the  officers  told  a  story  of  Grannie  M.,  one 
of  our  First  Division  majors.  A  chaplain,  who 
never  went  farther  than  the  wagon-lines,  was 
always  sa57ing  how  much  he'd  like  to  see  the 
Front.  Grannie  called  his  bluff  and  took  him 
for  a  trip  into  one  of  the  warmest  spots.  The 
chaplain  kept  dodging  and  crouching  every  time 
a  shell  fell  within  a  hundred  yards.  Each  time 
Grannie,  standing  quietly  silent,  waited  for  him 
to  get  up  and  renew  the  journey.  At  last  the 
chaplain  flopped  into  a  shell-hole  and  refused  to 
come  out.  Grannie,  who  is  a  big  man  and  well 
over  six  foot,  grinned  down  at  him  despisingly. 
"  Priest,"  he  said,  "  if  I  thought  I  had  half  the 
pull  with  Christ  that  you  say  you  have,  not  all  the 
shells  in  France  would  make  me  lie  as  flat  as  that." 
Later  another  chaplain  came  to  that  brigade. 
No  one  would  give  him  house-room.      He  went 


LIVING  BAYONETS  99 

off  and  slept  where  he  could  ;  he  never  came  near 
the  officers,  but  he  haunted  the  men  at  the 
forward  gims.  WTien  the  brigade  moved  out  to 
another  sector,  he  procured  an  old  skate  of  a 
horse  and  trailed  along  at  the  rear  of  the  line  of 
march  like  a  hungry  dog.  The  new  Front  proved 
to  be  a  warm  one  ;  there  were  many  casualties, 
but  the  chaplain  was  always  on  his  job,  especially 
when  the  shells  were  falling.  From  somewhere 
he  got  the  money  to  start  a  canteen  for  the  men, 
which  he  ran  himself.  When  no  one  else  had 
cigarettes,  he  could  supply  them.  At  last  even 
the  officers  had  to  come  to  him.  He  finished  up 
by  being  the  most  popular  chaplain  the  brigade 
had  ever  had,  honoured  by  everyone  from  the 
colonel  down.  There  are  your  two  types  of  army 
chaplains  :  the  one  who  plays  the  game,  the 
other  who  issues  season  tickets  to  heaven,  but  is 
afraid  of  travelling  on  them  himself. 

XL 

France 
April  26,  1918 

It  is  now  over  a  week  since  I  have  been  back 
witli  my  battery,  and  it  seems  as  though  all 
that  trip  along  the  American  hne  and  the  rush 
back  to  New  York  had  never  happened.  I'm 
sitting  in  a  httlc  "  house  "  in  a  deep  chalk  trench. 
The  house  is  made  of  half-circles  of  corrugated 


100  LIVING  BAYONETS 

iron  ;  there's  an  anti-gas  blanket  hanging  at  one 
end  and  at  the  other  a  window  made  of  oiled 
calico.  Up  one  corner  are  the  maps,  scales,  and 
office  papers  ;  pinned  on  boards  is  a  four-foot  map 
of  the  entire  English  front.  My  sleeping  bag  is 
stretched  on  an  old  French  spring  mattress, 
which  was  brought  here  some  time  ago  by  the 
Huns.  From  the  walls  hang  a  higgledy-piggledy 
of  trench  coats,  breeches,  tunics.  This  is  the 
place  in  which  we  work  out  our  ranges,  play 
cards,  have  our  meals,  and  rest  when  we're  back 
from  doing  forward  work. 

You  can  walk  for  miles  where  we  are  without 
ever  being  seen,  if  you  follow  the  various  systems 
of  Hun  and  British  trenches,  for  we're  plumb  in 
the  heart  of  an  old  battlefield.  The  only  land- 
marks left  to  guide  one  are  the  craters  as  big  as 
churches — records  of  mines  that  have  been 
sprung — and  little  rows  of  lonely  graves.  At 
night  when  the  moon  is  up,  this  country  creates 
the  curious  ghostly  illusion  of  being  an  endless 
alkali  desert,  beaten  into  billows  by  the  wind. 
The  shells  go  shrieking  over  it  and  wreaths  of 
mist  wander  here  and  there  like  phantoms. 
Destruction  can  create  a  terrible  pretence  and 
caricature  of  beauty.  I  wish  you  might  visit 
such  a  place  just  once  so  as  to  get  an  idea  of 
where  our  lives  are  spent. 

Your   letters   apropos   of   the   latest    German 


LIVING  BAYONETS  loi 

offensive  bring  home  to  me  very  vividly  the 
emotional  terror  which  war  excites  in  the  minds 
of  civilians.  You  picture  us  as  standing  with  our 
backs  to  the  wall,  desperately  pushing  death 
from  off  our  breasts  with  naked  hands.  The 
tnith  is  so  immensely  different.  We're  having  a 
thorouglily  bang-up  time,  and  we're  as  amused 
by  the  Hun  as  ever.  He  may  force  us  to  fall 
back  ;  but  while  we  fall  back  we  laugh  at  him. 
That  is  the  attitude  of  every  British  soldier  that 
I've  met.  We're  as  happy  and  unconcerned  as 
children.  There's  one  chap  here  who's  typical  of 
this  spirit  of  treating  war  as  an  immensely  sport- 
ing event.  He's  the  raiding  officer  of  a  certain 
battahon,  and  is  known  as  "  Battling  Brown  " — 
though  Brown  is  not  his  real  name.  He  has  a 
httle  company  of  his  own,  consisting  of  seventy 
men.  He's  been  in  over  a  hundred  raids  on  the 
Hun  Front  line  and  has  only  had  two  of  his  men 
killed  in  a  year.  A  short  while  ago  he  went 
across  with  his  raiders  and  captured  three 
Germans ;  on  the  return  journey  across  No 
Man's  Land  something  happened,  and  he  lined  up 
his  prisoners  and  shot  them.  He  led  his  men 
safely  back  to  our  lines  and  then  set  out  again 
alone  on  a  private  excursion  into  the  Boche  terri- 
tory. By  dawn  he  once  more  returned,  bringing 
back  four  prisoners  single-handed.  You  might 
picture  such  a  man  as  a  kind  of  Hercules,  but  he 


102  LIVING  BAYONETS 

isn't.  He's  thin,  and  tall,  and  fair,  and  high 
strung.  His  age,  I  should  guess,  is  about  twenty- 
two. 

Far  away  in  the  distance  I  can  hear  the  pipers 
playing.  It  always  makes  me  think  of  Loch 
Lomond  and  when  we  were  little  tads.  How 
green  and  quiet  and  cool  those  days  seem  now 
— the  long  rides  across  the  moors  and  down  the 
glens,  the  bathing  in  httle  mountain  streams, 
the  walks  in  the  sad  twihghts.  There  are  so 
many  happy  memories  I  have  to  thank  you  for. 
You  were  very  wise  and  generous  in  the  way  you 
planned  my  childhood.  I'm  less  than  a  fortnight 
back  at  the  Front,  but  I'm  already  falling  into 
the  old  habit  of  happy  retrospect.  We  don't 
live  here  really.  Our  souls  are  in  France  only 
for  brief  and  glorious  and  intense  intervals — 
during  the  moments  of  attack  and  repulse.  The 
rest  of  the  time  we're  away  in  the  green  valleys 
of  remembered  places,  watching  the  ghosts  who 
are  the  shadows  of  what  we  were. 

My  groom  is  a  boy  named  Gilpin.  The  name 
has  proved  his  downfall.  He  galloped  my  horse 
on  the  hard  road  the  other  day,  which  is  forbidden. 
A  colonel  caught  him  going  full  tilt,  stopped  him 
and  took  his  name.  When  the  severities  seemed 
ended  this  innocent  young  party  asked  the 
colonel  to  hold  his  horse  while  he  mounted — 
so  now  he's  up  on  an  extra  charge  of  insolence. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  103 

Army  discipline  is  in  many  ways  silly  and  old 
maidish.  Here's  a  chap  who's  faithful,  well 
conducted,  and  honest.  He's  likely  to  get  a 
heavier  punishment  for  asking  a  superior  officer 
to  hold  his  horse  than  if  he'd  been  drunk  and 
uproarious. 

XLI 

France 
April  28,  1918 

It's  funny  to  recall  the  different  graveyards 
among  the  shell-holes  that  I've  learnt  to  call 
home.  Once  life  was  so  definitely  focused — 
much  too  definitely  for  my  patience.  It  seemed 
as  though  I  was  rooted  and  planted  for  all  eternity. 
It  never  seemed  to  me  then  that  I  should  ever 
find  the  sacrificial  opportunity  or  be  stirred  to 
any  prophetic  exaltations.  It's  wonderful  the 
way  the  angel  of  Death,  as  discovered  in  war,  can 
give  one  visions  of  limitless  nobilities,  each  one 
of  which  is  attainable  and  accessible. 

I'm  by  myself  at  the  Battery.  It's  late  after- 
noon, and  a  thunderstorm  is  brewing.  The  room 
is  dark  (I  mean  the  dug-out)  ;  I  feel  as  though  it 
were  November  instead  of  April.  Wliat  a  queer 
life  this  is.  In  one  way  I  have  not  had  so  much 
idleness  since  I  was  in  hospital — then  comes  a 
burst  of  physical  strenuosity  out  of  all  proportion 
to  one's  strength.     Things  happen  by  fits  and 


104  LIVING  BAYONETS 

starts  ;  you  never  know  what  is  going  to  happen 
next. 

It's  intensely  still.  The  stillness  is  made  more 
noticeable  by  the  booming  of  an  occasional  gun. 

The  whole  hope  and  talk  of  our  chaps  is  the 
Americans — what  they're  going  to  do,  when 
they're  going  to  start  doing  it,  and  what  kind  of 
a  moral  they  will  have.  I  hear  the  wildest 
rumours  of  the  numbers  they  have  in  France — 
rumours  which  I  know  to  be  untrue  since  my 
tour  along  the  American  lines.  You  will  have 
read  the  manuscript  of  Out  to  Win  long  before 
this  letter  reaches  you.  I  wonder  what  you  all 
think  of  it  and  whether  you  like  it.  It  was 
written  in  a  breathless,  racing  sort  of  fashion. 
I  sat  at  it  from  morning  till  last  thing  at  night. 
All  my  desire  was  to  do  my  duty  as  regards  the 
Americans  and  then  to  get  out  here  before  the 
big  show  started.  I  managed  things  just  in 
time.  I  don't  remember  much  of  what  I  wrote 
— only  a  picture  of  Domremy  and  another  of 
Evian  and  Nancy.  I  hope  it  was  as  good  as 
you  expected. 

There  are  things  one  lives  through  and  sees 
now  which  seem  ordinary  but  which  to  future 
ages  will  figure  as  stupendous.  If  one  can  record 
them  now  in  just  that  spirit  of  ordinariness  which 
constitutes  their  real  wonder,  they  will  together 
give  an  accurate  portrait  of  Armageddon.     My 


LIVING  BAYONETS  105 

nine  months  out  of  the  Hne  began  to  give  me  a 
little  perspective — I  began  to  see  the  awful 
marvellousness  of  some  of  the  scenes  that  I  had 
lived  through.  Now,  like  the  mist  which  I  see 
hanging  above  the  Hun  Front  line,  a  curtain  of 
normality  is  blotting  out  the  sharp  abnormal 
edges  of  my  landscape. 

This  war,  at  the  distance  which  removes  you 
from  it,  must  seem  a  filthy  and  brutal  kind  of 
game.  It  is  all  of  that.  But  it's  more  than 
that.  The  game  was  not  of  our  inventing — 
it  was  thrust  on  us.  We  are  not  responsible  for 
the  game  ;  but  we  are  responsible  for  the  spirit 
in  which  we  play  it.  The  fine,  clear,  visionary 
attitude  of  our  chaps  redeems  for  us  the  horror 
and  pathos  of  the  undertaking. 

It  will  be  towards  the  end  of  May  when  this 
arrives  and  you'll  be  off  to  the  lakes  and  the 
mountains.  I  wonder  where.  I  suppose  we'll 
still  be  plugging  along,  sending  death  over  into 
Fritz's  lines  and  receiving  it  back. 

XLII 

France 

May  2,  1918 

Here  I  am  up  forward  again  on  my  shift.  I'm 
sitting  in  a  hole  sunk  beneath  the  level  of  the 
ground,  with  a  slit  that  just  peeps  out  across  the 
dandelions  to  the  Hun  Front  line.     From  here  I 


io6  LIVING  BAYONETS 

can  catch  any  movement  in  the  enemy  back- 
country  without  being  seen  myself.  Below  my 
O.P.  there  is  a  deep  dug-out  to  which  I  can  retire 
in  the  event  of  enemy  shelling;  ;  if  one  exit  gets 
blown  in,  there's  a  second  from  which  I  can  make 
good  my  escape.  On  each  fresh  trip  to  this 
place  I  find  a  new  gem  of  literature  left  behind 
by  one  or  other  of  the  telephonists.  Last  time 
it  was  a  priceless  kitchen  masterpiece  by  Charles 
Garvice,  entitled  The  Triumphant  Lover ;  this 
time  it's  an  exceedingly  purple  effort  by  Victoria 
Cross,  entitled  Five  Nights.  So  you  see  I  do 
not  allow  my  interest  in  matters  intellectual  to 
rust. 

There  are  many  things  of  interest  that  I  should 
like  to  tell  you,  but  the  consciousness  that  the 
censor  is  for  ever  at  my  elbow  prevents.  Did  I 
ever  tell  you  the  story  of  the  censor  whom  I  met 
on  the  train  from  Boulogne,  when  I  was  return- 
ing to  the  line  in  January  1917  ?  If  I  happened 
to  tell  it  to  you,  the  gentleman  who  uninvited 
shares  all  my  letters  with  you  hasn't  heard  it,  and 
I'm  sure  his  curiosity  must  be  pricked  by  this 
time — so  here  goes. 

It  was  after  that  splendid  leave  in  London 
which  you  came  over  from  America  to  share 
with  me.  The  train  from  Boulogne  to  the  Front 
was  the  usual  draughty  affair,  half  the  windows 
out,  no  heating  system,  no  means  of  getting  any- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  107 

thing  to  eat  for  goodness  knows  how  many  hours. 
I  picked  out  the  least  disreputable  carriage  and 
found  that  a  gunner  colonel  was  snuggled  up  in 
one  corner  and  a  pile  of  rugs,  pillows,  hot-water 
bottles,  eatables,  etc.,  in  another.  Just  as  the 
train  was  starting  the  owner  of  all  these  effeminate 
luxuries  hopped  in  and  commenced  to  make 
himself  comfortable.  He  was  nearer  fifty  than 
forty.  His  nose  was  inflamed  and  heavily  veined, 
either  from  drink,  dyspepsia,  or  both.  His  rank 
was  that  of  a  lieutenant.  His  social  grade  that 
of  a  post-office  assistant,  I  should  fancy.  His 
uniform  fitted  abominably,  and  his  appearance 
was  as  unsoldierly  as  can  well  be  imagined.  He 
looked  like  a  loose-living  spider. 

We  hadn't  been  moving  very  long  when  he 
started  to  unwrap  his  packages  and  to  gorge  him- 
self. He  ate  steadily  like  one  whose  life  depended 
on  it.  The  colonel  and  I  had  forgotten  to  bring 
anything,  so  we  had  the  joy  of  watching. 

In  our  chilly  misery  we  became  human  and 
began  to  talk.  The  conversation  became  remi- 
niscent of  the  numerous  offensives.  The  sloppy 
lieutenant  with  the  drooping  walrus  moustaches 
who  sat  opposite  to  us,  persistently  laid  claim 
to  a  more  thorough  knowledge  of  attacks  that 
we  had  been  in  than  we  did  ourselves.  He 
puzzled  us  ;  we  couldn't  picture  him  as  a  com- 
batant.    Quite  haphazard  one  of  us — I  think  it 


io8  LIVING  BAYONETS 

was  the  colonel — commenced  to  damn  censors 
as  chaps  who  sat  safely  behind  the  lines  and  spied 
on  fighting-men's  private  affairs.  The  lieutenant 
became  very  hot  in  the  censors'  defence.  He  tried 
to  prove  the  necessity  for  them  by  quoting  the 
case  of  a  lieutenant  named  N.,  who  had  sent 
back  captured  aeroplane  photos  to  his  friends. 
I  happened  to  know  N.  and  that  he  was  going 
to  be  tried  by  court-martial  for  his  indiscretion, 
so  grew  loud  in  proclaiming  my  contempt  for 
the  fellow  safely  behind  the  lines  who  had  caught 
him.  We  were  particularly  annoyed,  because  N. 
was  a  plucky  soldier. 

Our  friend  in  the  corner  took  my  remarks 
extremely  personally.  To  show  his  resentment  of 
me,  he  pointedly  offered  the  colonel  some  of  his 
fodder.  At  last  he  said  very  haughtily,  "  It  may 
interest  you  to  know  that  I  am  the  censor  and 
am  at  present  going  up  the  line  to  give  evidence 
against  Lieutenant  N.  at  his  trial."  Just  at 
that  moment  the  train  stopped  at  a  station.  He 
blinked  through  the  window  with  his  short- 
sighted eyes,  trying  to  read  the  name  "  This 
is  M.,  I  think,"  he  said  ;  "if  it  is,  we  stop  here 
ten  minutes  and  get  time  to  stretch  our  legs." 

I  looked  out  of  the  window  helpfully.  "  It  is 
M.,"  I  told  him.  It  wasn't.  He  got  out  and 
commenced  to  walk  up  the  platform.  Almost 
immediately  the  train  started  to  pull  out.     He 


LIVING  BAYONETS  109 

made  a  wild  crab-wise  dash  for  the  carriage-door, 
but  the  colonel  and  I  were  hanging  to  it  on  the 
inside.  When  we  were  safely  on  our  journey,  we 
shared  up  his  pillows,  rugs,  hot-water  bottles, 
and  eatables  between  us,  and  had  a  compara- 
tively pleasant  journey.  For  once  we  thanked 
God  for  the  censor. 

It's  tea-time  at  home.  You've  probably  come 
in  from  a  walk  and  are  smoking  a  cigar  at  the 
family  oak-table.     I  wish  I  could  pop  in  on  you. 

Oh,  our  latest  excitement  !  We  received  our 
new  gramophone  last  night  with  about  thirty  of 
the  latest  records  ! 

You'll  be  glad  to  know  that  I  now  have  my  old 
batman  back.  He's  the  man  who  took  me  out 
when  I  was  wounded  and  was  so  tender  to  me 
on  the  way  to  the  hospital.  That  memory  of  his 
tenderness  is  rather  embarrassing,  for  I  can't 
bring  myself  to  strafe  him  the  way  I  ought  to. 
I  can  always  see  the  fellow's  concern  when  he 
thought  that  I  was  done  for.  Now  that  he's  got 
me  back  he  acts  as  though  I  were  still  a  very 
weak  and  indiscreet  person  who  had  to  be  coaxed 
and  managed.  I  have  the  feeling  in  his  presence 
of  being  prepetually  in  pyjamas  and  in  bed.  He 
has  the  advantage  of  me,  to  put  it  in  a  nutshell. 


no  LIVING  BAYONETS 

XLIII 

France 
May  3,  igi8 

It's  early  morning.  I'm  still  sitting  in  the  little 
dug-out  with  the  slit  that  looks  towards  the 
Hun  Front  line.  Everything  but  the  immediate 
foreground  is  blanketed  in  heavy  mist  at  present. 
I  can  hear  bombing  going  on  somewhere — but 
I  can  also  hear  a  lark  singing  near  to  the  sun, 
high  overhead.  The  clumps  of  dandelions  are 
still  sleeping.  They  haven't  opened — they're 
green  instead  of  yellow.  The  grass  sparkles  with 
little  drops  of  dew,  more  beautiful  than  the  most 
costly  diamonds.  With  the  first  of  the  dawn  I 
read  a  story  by  Tolstoy  ;  since  then  I've  been 
sitting  thinking — thinking  of  you  and  of  the 
sleeping  house  in  Newark,  which  will  soon  be 
disturbed  by  your  bath-water  running,  if  you 
stiU  rise  early  ;  and  thinking  how  strange  it  is 
that  I  should  be  here  in  the  greatest  war  in 
history.  We  planned  to  do  such  different  things 
with  our  lives.  My  first  dream  was  to  become 
extremely  wise.  At  Oxford  there  seemed  no  limit 
to  the  amount  of  knowledge  I  could  acquire ;  it 
seemed  only  a  matter  of  patience  and  persever- 
ance. Then  that  dream  went,  and  I  wanted  to 
save  the  world.  I'm  afraid  one  has  to  be  a  little 
aristocratic   towards   the   world   before   he   can 


LIVING  BAYONETS  iii 

conceive  of  himself  as  capable  of  saving  it  or  of 
the  world  as  requiring  saving.  The  aristocratic 
touch  grew  on  me  and  I  decided  to  do  my  saving 
not  by  touching  people,  but  by  writing  poetry 
for  the  few  who  would  understand.  It  wasn't 
half  such  good  poetry  as  I  thought  it  was  at  the 
time,  and  it  never  could  have  re-made  anything. 
Disappointed  in  tliat  and  because  I  had  now 
committed  myself  to  a  literary  way  of  life,  I  took 
to  writing  novels,  which  nobody  wanted  to 
publish,  read,  or  buy.  Then,  because  I  had  to  hve 
somehow,  I  entered  into  the  commercial  end  of 
publishing.  There  was  always  the  shadow  of  a 
dream  which  I  pursued  even  then  in  my  spare 
hours  ;  it  was  the  dream  that  saved  me  and  led 
me  on  to  write  The  Garden  Without  Walls. 
But  the  shadow  was  growing  fainter  when  this 
war  commenced.  And  here  I  am,  human  at  last, 
all  touch  of  false  aristocracy  gone,  peeping  out 
across  the  grass  wet  with  the  dew  of  May,  be- 
neath which  he  the  common  clay  heroes  who 
have  died  for  democracy.  How  noiselessly  these 
men  gave  up  their  hves  and  with  how  Httle  con- 
sciousness of  self-appreciation.  They  rather  put 
us  to  shame — we  privileged  dawdlers  in  our 
haunted  minds.  They  recognized  the  one  straight 
thing  to  do  when  the  opportunity  presented  itself ; 
they  did  it  swiftly  and  unreasoningly  with  their 
might.     They  didn't  write  about  what  they  did  ; 


112  LIVING  BAYONETS 

for  them  the  doing  was  sufficient.  I  think  I  shall 
always  be  a  humble  man  after  such  companion- 
ship, if  I  survive.  I  see  life  in  courageous  vistas 
of  actions  now  ;  formerly  I  was  like  Hamlet — I 
thought  myself  into  a  green  sickness.  Marriage 
and  children,  a  home  and  family  love  are  the 
best  that  anyone  can  extract  from  Ufe.  There 
have  been  years  when  I  didn't  like  my  kind. 

Out  of  the  many  things  that  have  come  to  me 
in  the  past  six  months  I  am  particularly  glad  of 
little  Tinker's  friendship — P.'s  baby.  She's  not 
two  yet,  but  we  were  real  pals.  She  would  never 
go  to  sleep  until  I  had  kissed  her  in  her  cot 
"  Good-night."  First  thing  in  the  morning  she 
would  be  beside  my  bed,  tugging  at  the  clothes 
and  ordering  me  to  "  Det  up."  Since  I've  been 
gone  they've  had  to  ring  the  bell  and  pretend 
that  I'm  just  entering  the  hall,  so  that  they  may 
make  her  go  to  sleep  contented.  When  they 
ask  her,  "  Where's  Con  ?  "  she  reaches  up  to  the 
window  and  points.  "  Dorn  walk  in  park,"  she 
says.  They  talk  about  the  love  of  a  woman  keep- 
ing a  man  straight,  but  I  don't  think  it's  to  be 
compared  with  the  love  of  a  little  child.  You 
can't  lie  to  them. 

The  sharp  rat-a-tat  of  the  machine  guns  has 
started  ;  but  the  mist  is  too  thick  for  me  to  see  what 
is  happening It's  nothing ;  it's  died  down. 

In  an  hour  I  shall  be  relieved,  and  shall  return 


LIVING  BAYONETS  113 

to  the  guns  and  post  this  letter.  It  will  reach 
you  when  ?  Sometime  in  June,  I  expect,  when 
the  summer  is  really  come  and  you're  wearing 
your  cool  dresses.  I  can  see  you  going  out  in 
the  early  morning  to  do  your  shopping. 

XLIV 

France 
May  y,  1918 

I  AM  sitting  in  my  bed — my  sleeping-sack,  I  mean 
— which  is  spread  out  on  the  red-tiled  floor 
of  a  funny  httle  cottage.  There  isn't  much  of 
the  floor  left,  as  four  of  the  other  officers  are 
sharing  the  room  with  me.  Coming  in  through 
the  window  is  the  smell  of  sweet  myrtle,  old- 
fashioned  and  quiet  ;  from  far  away  drifts  in 
the  continual  pounding  of  the  guns  and,  strangely 
muddled  up  with  the  gunfire,  the  multitudinous 
croaking  of  frogs.  I'm  having  an  extraordinary 
May  month  of  it  in  lovely  country,  marching 
through  the  showers,  getting  drenched  and  dry- 
ing when  the  sun  deigns  to  make  an  appearance. 
After  being  off  a  horse  for  so  long,  I'm  in  the 
saddle  for  many  hours  every  day. 

I  am  glad  that  you  all  feel  the  way  you  do 
about  my  returning  to  the  Front.  I  was  sure 
you  wouldn't  want  me  to  be  out  of  these  great 
happenings.  My  fear,  when  I  was  in  England 
this  spring,  was  the  same  as  I  had  when  I  first 
8 


114  LIVING  BAYONETS 

joined — that  fighting  would  all  be  ended  before 
I  got  into  the  line.  No  fear  of  that ;  I  think 
we're  in  for  another  two  years  of  it.  There's  hot 
work  ahead — the  hottest  of  the  entire  war.  Oddly 
enough  my  spirits  rise  as  the  struggle  promises 
to  grow  fiercer.  I  don't  know  why,  unless  it  is 
that  as  the  action  quickens  one  has  a  chance  of 
giving  more.  There's  nothing  sad  about  being 
wounded  or  dying  for  one's  country.  In  this 
war  one  does  so  much  more  than  that — he  dies 
for  the  whole  of  humanity. 

Outside  my  window  a  stretch  of  hedges  runs 
down  to  a  little  brook.  Ducks,  geese,  cocks  and 
hens  make  farmyard  noises  from  dawn  till  last 
thing  at  night.  Above  all  the  peace  and  quiet, 
the  distant  guns  keep  up  their  incessant  murmur. 
What  a  variety  of  places  are  likely  to  shelter 
me  before  the  summer  is  ended — woods,  ditches, 
open  fields,  trenches.  It's  all  in  the  game  and 
is  romance  of  a  sort.  I'm  sunburnt  and  hard. 
I  feel  tremendously  alive. 

Once  again  all  the  striving  and  ambition  of 
literary  success  has  vanished.  I'm  only  a  sub- 
altern— and  far  prouder  to  be  that  than  a  writer. 
I'm  estimated  by  none  but  my  soldiering  qualities 
and  power  to  show  guts.  We  were  lawyers, 
engineers,  business-men — now  we're  soldiers  and 
inquire  nothing  of  each  other's  past. 

A   thrush   has   started   singing  ;    he's   in   the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  115 

willows  that  stand  by  the  brookside.  The  planes 
go  purring  overhead,  but  he  doesn't  care.  He 
goes  on  singing  towards  the  evening  sun  as  though 
his  heart  knew  nothing  but  joy.  He  wiU  be  here 
singing  long  after  we  have  passed  upon  our  way. 
Don't  get  worrying  about  my  safety.  You're 
sure  to  be  feehng  nervous  at  the  wrong  times, 
when  I'm  perfectly  safe.  Just  feel  glad  that  I'm 
allowed  to  be  here,  and  don't  look  ahead. 

XLV 

France 
May  14,  1918 

I'm  afraid  you'll  be  feeling  that  I've  neglected 
you.  Wlienever  I  miss  a  mail  I  have  the  re- 
proachful picture  of  the  disappointed  faces  of 
you  three  at  the  early  morning  breakfast — so 
it  isn't  \silful  neglect.  I've  had  no  time,  for 
reasons  which  I  can't  explain.  In  this  way  of 
life  one  has  to  snatch  the  odd  moments  for  those 
he  loves  best  and  to  break  off  when  the  sterner 
obligations  intrude  themselves. 

I'm  in  a  beautiful  part  of  the  country  at  present 
— it  must  be  beautiful,  for  it  is  providing  us 
with  three  ducks  for  dinner  to-night.  I  doubt 
whether  you  could  get  three  all  at  once  in  Newark. 
Moreover,  we  can  get  all  the  fresh  cream  and 
butter  that  we  like.  Of  course  this  won't  last. 
Any  morning  we  may  wake  up  to  find  ourselves 


ii6  LIVING  BAYONETS 

back  on  iron  rations — bully-beef  and  hard  tack. 
But  while  it  lasts  we  make  the  most  of  it.  The 
most  ripping  attraction  to  me  is  something  that 
you'll  scarcely  credit.  The  willow-groves  are 
full  of  nightingales.  As  you  go  back  to  your 
billets  after  midnight  and  the  guns  make  light- 
ning through  the  grill-work  of  the  trees,  you  see 
the  little  brown  fellows  with  their  throats  quiver- 
ing, pouring  out  their  song  of  love  and  spring. 
When  you've  crept  into  your  sleeping-sack, 
you  lie  awake  listening — thinking  of  another 
world  where  love  and  life  were  once  so  certain. 

XLVI 

France 
May  i8,  1918 

This  is  the  third  day  that  I  have  planned  to  write 
you.     Perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  do  so  this  time. 

I  have  just  been  reading  a  letter  from  a  nurse 
out  in  Palestine  describing  the  little  wooden 
crosses  above  fallen  British  soldiers  which  now 
star  the  Mount  of  Olives.  The  poetry  of  the 
ordinary  crops  out  everywhere  to-day  ;  we  are 
living  on  higher  levels  than  we  realize.  For  hun- 
dreds of  years  the  future  generations  will  weave 
legends  round  us,  making  us  appear  titanic  spirit- 
people,  just  as  we  have  clothed  with  almost  un- 
earthly splendour  the  Crusaders  of  the  Dark  Ages. 

This  is  a  pleasant  May  evening.     The  fields  are 


LIVING  BAYONETS  117 

golden  \nth  buttercups.  Above  the  singing  of  the 
birds  I  can  hear  a  low  droning  as  of  bees  among 
flowers  ;  but  the  droning  is  of  homing  aeroplanes. 
This  is  the  kind  of  weather  and  country  in  which 
it  would  not  be  unbeautiful  to  die. 

When  I  went  down  this  morning  to  the  barn 
in  which  my  section  is  stationed,  I  found  notice 
printed  on  the  door,  on  either  side  a  British  and 
American  flag-  and  underneath  a  luridly  illus- 
trated Sunday  magazine  selection  of  extracts 
from  The  Glory  of  the  Trenches.  A  small  world, 
isn't  it  ? 

I  have  been  reading  a  book  lately  that  would 
interest  you  ;  it's  by  Ford  Mad  ox  Hueffer  and 
is  called  On  Heaven.  It  consists  of  a  number 
of  poems  written  while  on  active  service.  He's 
managed  to  put  down  in  a  rough  and  tumble  of 
words  a  good  many  of  our  hungers  and  adorations, 
I  hadn't  realized  before  I  read  him  how  very 
much  of  the  conversation  of  our  soldiers  is  an 
exchange  of  confidences  about  the  women  they 
love  or  have  loved.  I  believe  every  man  at  the 
Front  has  a  hope  of  the  girl  he  will  be  true  to 
some  day,  and  a  fear  lest 

One  of  Hueffer 's  poems  on  the  subject  is  very 
beautiful.     It  starts  this  way  : 

"  In  Chepstow  stands  a  castle  ; 
My  love  and  I  ivcnt  there  ; 


ii8  LIVING  BAYONETS 

The  foxgloves  on  the  wall  all  heard 
Her  footsteps  on  the  stair. 
The  sun  was  high  in  heaven 
And  the  perfume  in  the  air 
Came  from  purple  cat's  valerian — 
But  her  footsteps  on  the  stair 
Made  a  sound  like  silver  music 
Thro'  the  perfume  in  the  air." 

The  last  verse  sums  up  the  dread  of  many  a  fight- 
ing-man— that  all  his  dreams  are  only  dreams,  and 
that  a  return  to  reality  may  disappoint  him  : 

"And  another  soldier  fellow 
Shall  come  courting  of  my  dear. 
And  it's  I  shall  not  he  with  her 
With  my  lip  beside  her  ear. 
For  it's  he  shall  walk  beside  her 
In  the  perfume  of  the  air 
To  the  silver,  silver  music 
Of  her  footstep  on  the  stair." 

All  the  world's  idealists  are  in  the  trenches 
by  now.  What  a  shining  cloud  of  imaginings 
must  rise  up  to  the  Soul  which  lies  behind  the 
world.  God  must  be  amazed  to  find  that  horror 
can  make  His  obstinate  creations  so  simple  and 
childlike.  Here  are  millions  of  us  who  once 
thought  only  of  oiu:  social  and  individual  bellies, 
now  thinking  only  of  the  unborn  children  and 


LIVING  BAYONETS  119 

the  things  of  the  spirit.  All  the  fond  and  dear 
accepted  affections  have  become  a  kind  of  heaven 
that  lies  in  the  past  instead  of  the  future.  If 
we  die  we  don't  want  any  heaven  that  isn't  a 
re-living  of  the  old  happy  memories. 

I  find  that  Hueffer  expresses  a  feeling  that 
many  of  us  have  secretly,  but  which  I  have  never 
heard  any  man  acknowledge — the  feeling  that 
all  the  remainder  of  his  days  he  will  have  to  be 
explaining  if  he  comes  to  the  end  of  the  war  alive 
— almost  the  feeling  that  he  will  have  lost  his 
great  chance  of  nobility  by  not  dying.  Hueffer 's 
poem  is  called  One  Day's  List ;  it's  a  list  of  three 
officers  and  270  other  ranks  of  his  regiment  who 
were  killed  in  action.     It  commences  : 

"  My  dears. 
The  rain  drips  down  on  Rouen  Town, 
The  leaves  drip  down 
And  so  the  mud 
Turns  orange  brown." 

And  it  has  for  its  refrain 

"  But  you — at  least — are  out  of  it." 

It  goes  on  to  tell  of  the  officers  who  fell,  and 
repeats  the  reflection  which  we  all  have  when 
we  gaze  on  the  dead  at  the  end  of  an  attack  and 
know  that  we  ourselves  have  escaped  : 

"  One  wonders  why  you  died," 


120  LIVING  BAYONETS 

And  then, 

"  We  never  talked  of  glory, 
And  each  thought  a  lot  of  one  girl 
And  waited  most  days  for  hours  in  the  rain 
Till  she  came  : 
But  we  never  talked  of  Fame " 

And  lastly,  addressing  the  dead, 

"  But  we  who  remain  shall  grow  old, 
We  shall  know  the  cold 
Of  cheerless 

Winter  and  the  rain  of  Autumn  and  the  sting 
Of  poverty,  of  love  despised  and  of  disgraces. 
And  mirrors  showing  stained  and  ageing  faces, 
A  nd  the  long  ranges  of  comfortless  years 
And  the  long  gamut  of  human  fears — 
But,  for  you,  it  shall  he  for  ever  Spring, 
And  only  you  shall  he  for  ever  fearless. 
And  only  you  have  white,  straight,  tireless  limhs. 
And  only  you,  where  the  water-lily  swims 
Shall  walk  along  the  pathways,  thro'  the  willows 
Of  your  west. 
You  who  went  west. 

And  only  you  on  silvery  twilight  pillows 
Shall  take  your  rest 
In  the  soft  sweet  glooms. 
Of  twilight  rooms 


LIVING  BAYONETS  121 

There's  the  whole  of  our  one  and  only  cow- 
ardice in  a  nut-shell — that  we,  who  have  posed 
as  conquerors  for  a  while,  \\nll,  if  we  survive,  re- 
turn to  the  normal  things  of  life  to  find  our  spirits 
unexalted  and  the  commonplace  still  commonplace. 

Out  here,  where  there  are  corpses  in  the  thistles 
and  "  the  gas-shells  burst  like  snow,"  we  can  talk 
of  "  the  silver,  silver  music  of  her  footsteps  on  the 
stair,"  but  we're  mortally  afraid  that  in  less  exult- 
ant moments,  when  the  heart  is  not  so  starved  for 
affection,  we  shall  discover  that  the  "  silver  music  " 
is  only  the  irritating  sound  of  squeaky  shoes. 

I  can't  hear  from  you  again  for  at  least  six 
days — a  long  time  to  wait  !  I  can't  be  bothered 
nowadays  to  let  the  mail-clerk  sort  out  the  letters  : 
I  grab  the  bag  and  go  through  it  myself. 

There  may  be  an  interval  between  this  letter 
and  those  that  follow.  If  there  is,  don't  worry 
yourselves.  It  is  not  possible  to  find  the  time 
or  place  to  write  under  all  circumstances. 

XLVII 

France 
June  I,  1918 

I  can't  remember  when  last  I  wrote  you.  It 
isn't  always  easy  to  get  the  time.  Recently  I've 
spent  a  good  many  hours  in  the  saddle  and  have 
been  up  early  in  the  morning  ;  when  work  is 
done  the  fresh  air  leaves  one  too  tired  for  any- 


122  LIVING  BAYONETS 

thing  but  sleep.  But  you  mustn't  worry  about 
me.  I'm  stronger  than  I've  been  for  months,  and 
tanned  to  the  colour  of  an  Indian. 

I  have  recently  met  the  doctor  who  did  so 
much  to  pull  me  through  at  the  Casualty  Clearing 
Station  when  I  was  wounded  last  June.  He's 
still  the  same  tall,  thin,  silent  man,  with  the 
kindest  and  sternest  of  faces.  His  brother,  he 
tells  me,  is  in  America  on  the  British  Mission, 
and  had  informed  him  of  America's  immense 
preparations.  Like  all  the  men  out  here,  I  found 
him  keenly  eager  to  see  the  U.S.A.  proportion- 
ately represented  in  the  Front  line.  We  are  hold- 
ing, and  counting  on  the  States  to  turn  the  tide 
dramatically  in  our  favour.  Our  chaps  are  te 
calm  and  confident  of  success — out  here  there's 
none  of  the  strain  and  nervousness  which  are  felt 
by  civilians.  Our  chaps  are  as  philosophical  and 
cheery  as  ever.  "  Good  old  Fritz,"  they  say, 
"  so  he's  taken  another  fifteen  miles  !  Well,  it'll 
be  our  turn  next."  Through  defeat  and  success 
we  carry  on  quite  normally  and  unperturbed, 
confident  of  ultimate  victory.  The  general  opinion 
is  that  the  Hun  by  his  advances  is  only  causing 
himself  a  lot  of  unnecessary  trouble,  as  he'U 
have  a  longer  distance  to  run  back  to  Germany. 

Here's  the  first  of  June  and  mid-summer  ap- 
proaching when  so  many  pleasant  things  used  to 
happen — flights  to  the  country,  the  purchasing 


LIVING  BAYONETS  123 

of  bathing-suits,  fishing-nets,  maps — the  planning 
of  such  quantities  of  family  adventures.  It 
would  be  happy  to  think  that  some  of  these  old 
pleasures  might  return  one  day.  The  longer  the 
war  goes  on  the  more  impossible  it  is  to  conjure 
up  the  picture  of  civilian  ways  of  life  or  to  see 
oneself  as  again  in  the  picture.  Everj^thing  grows 
blurred  except  the  present,  with  the  early  risings, 
routine,  orders,  marches,  and  attacks.  To  be 
given  our  freedom  would  leave  us  dazed. 

This  will  probably  reach  you  after  you  have 
left  New  York  and  settled  down  for  the  holidays 
in  some  quiet  country  place.  There's  only  one 
spot  which  seems  pennanent  in  our  family  life 
— the  little  grey  shack  among  the  orchards  in 
the  Rockies.  My  thoughts  fly  to  it  very  often 
these  hot  summer  days.  I  see  the  lake  like  a 
blue  mirror,  reflecting  the  mountains  and  the 
clouds.  I  hear  the  throbbing  of  the  launch. 
Bruce  is  barking  on  the  wharf.  Figures  are 
moving  about  the  boat-house.  We  climb  the  hill 
together  where  the  brook  sings  through  the 
flowers  and  the  evening  meal  awaits  us.  And 
afterwards  those  long  sleepy  evenings  when  the 
dusk  comes  down  and  the  flowers  shine  more 
vaguely,  and  we  talk  so  endlessly,  planning 
books,  retra versing  the  past,  mapping  out  a 
road  to  so  many  future  El  Dorados.  I  can  re- 
member these  former  happinesses  without  self- 


124  LIVING  BAYONETS 

torture  or  regret.  The  present  is  so  splendid  that 
it  outshines  all  former  beauties.  I  go  forward 
happily,  believing  that  any  bend  of  the  future 
may  bring  the  old  kindnesses  into  view  again. 

The  old  haunting  dream  of  BHghty  is  growing 
up  in  me  once  again — the  Blighty  we  speak  of, 
think  of,  worship  and  imagine  every  hour  of  the 
day.  It's  worth  being  wounded  if  only  to  wake 
up  the  first  morning  in  the  long  white  Enghsh 
ward,  with  the  gold-green  sunhght  dripping  in 
from  the  leaves  through  the  open  windows. 
These  are  the  exquisite  moments  of  peace  and 
rest  which  come  to  one  in  the  midst  of  warfare. 
Of  such  moments  within  the  last  year  I  have 
had  my  share  ;   they  are  happy  to  remember. 

And  the  war  goes  on  and  on.  I  was  so  afraid 
that  it  would  be  ended  before  ever  I  got  back. 
The  fear  was  needless.  I  shall  be  out  here  at 
least  another  year  before  peace  is  declared. 
There  are  times  when  I  think  that  the  Americans 
are  not  so  far  wrong  in  their  guess  when  they 
give  themselves  "  four  years  to  do  this  job." 
The  Hun  may  be  desperate  ;  his  very  energy 
may  be  a  proof  of  his  exhaustion.  But  his  death 
struggle  is  too  vigorously  successful  to  promise 
any  very  rapid  end.  Our  hope  is  in  America, 
with  her  high  courage,  her  sacrifice,  and  her 
milHons  of  men.  If  she  had  not  joined  us,  we 
would  still  stand  here  chafhngly  and  be  battered 


LIVING  BAYONETS  125 

till  not  one  of  us  was  left.  The  last  one  would  die 
with  the  smile  of  victory  on  his  mouth.  Wliatever 
happens,  they'll  never  catch  any  British  fighting- 
man  owning  that  his  tail  is  down.  But  the 
thought  of  the  American  milhons  gives  us  confid- 
ence that,  though  we  are  wiped  out,  we  shall  not 
have  lost.  Like  runners  in  a  relay  race,  though 
we  are  spent,  the  pace  we  have  set  will  enable 
those  who  come  after  us  to  win  in  the  last  lap. 

But  don't  worry  about  me.  I'm  having  a 
splendid  run  for  my  money,  and  am  far  more 
happy  than  I  deserve. 

XLVIII 

France 
June  I,  1918 

As  per  usual  when  I  write  to  you,  I  have  my 
nose  up  against  a  solitary  candle,  am  hedged  in 
by  shadows,  and  have  the  stump  of  a  cigarette 
in  my  mouth.  For  days  I  have  been  waiting  for 
letters  from  home,  but  none  has  arrived  as  yet. 
Either  the  ship  has  gone  down  or  some  other 
calamity  has  happened.  I  now  promise  myself 
that  to-morrow  there  will  be  a  huge  package  of 
belated  mail  for  me. 

We're  travelHng  very  light  at  present.  The 
first  thing  I  did  on  my  return  was  to  cut  down 
my  kit  to  the  barest  necessities  and  send  all  the 
balance  back  to  England.     It's  better  to  have 


126  LIVING  BAYONETS 

it  safe  in  London,  if  out  of  immediate  reach,  than 
to  have  to  abandon  it  in  a  ditch  or  shell-hole. 
While  the  summer  lasts  there  are  a  great  num- 
ber of  things  that  one  can  do  without. 

What  an  unsportsmanly  crowd  the  Germans 
are  !     I  think  more  than  anything  else  it  will  be 
their  lack  of  fair  play  that  we  shall  hold  against 
them   when   war   is   ended.     Yesterday    at    the 
Pope's  request  we  were  foolish  enough  to  refrain 
from  bombing   Cologne,    so   the   Hun   took   the 
opportunity  to  both  bomb  and  shell  the  Catho- 
lics of  Paris.     It  makes  one  itch  to  grab  a  bayo- 
net and  go  over  the  top  to  do  him  as  much 
damage  as  opportunity  will  allow.     The  Hun  is 
educating  us  out  of  our  good-humoured  contempt 
into   a   very   deep-seated   hatred   of   him.     The 
other   day   I   was   in   a   forward   town   recently 
evacuated  by  its  population.    You  walked  through 
silent,  torn   streets,  the  windows  all  broken  by 
shells,  the  doors  sagging  from  their  hinges  and 
open.     You  peered  across  the  thresholds  into  the 
houses.     In  many  cases  meals  were  still  on  the 
tables,   partly  eaten  and  hastily  left.     A  stray 
cat   scurried   out   into   the   yard  ;     nothing   else 
stirred.     Over  the  entire  death-like  silence  the 
summer  sun  shone  down  and  far  away  a  cuckoo 
was  calling.     One  gets  accustomed  to  the  out- 
ward   symbols    of    such    tragedies — the    broken 
homes,  abandoned  security  and  foregone  happi- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  127 

ness.  The  people  themselves  get  used  to  it. 
To-day  I  met  a  farm-wagon  piled  high  with  the 
household  gods,  while  a  peasant  woman  walked 
beside  \nth  her  best  hat  carried  in  a  paper-bag 
in  her  hand.  That  was  very  typical — in  all 
the  ruin  that  had  befallen  a  home  to  still  cling 
to  the  best  hat. 

I'm  very  happy  and  well,  living  almost  entirely 
in  the  open  and  in  the  saddle  a  good  part  of  the 
day.  The  part  of  France  I  have  lived  in  since 
my  return  is  by  far  the  cleanest  and  most  beauti- 
ful that  I  have  seen  on  active  service.  The 
weather  has  been  golden  and  glorious.  There  is 
none  of  that  fear  in  our  hearts  that  you  must 
experience  for  us.  We're  as  certain  of  victory 
as  we  were  during  the  days  of  the  big  Vimy 
advance. 

The  Army  is  a  nursery  organization,  full  of 
annoying  pomposities  and  amusing  class  distinc- 
tions. Just  at  present  we're  being  pestered  with 
continual  inspections,  when  each  battery  tries 
to  invent  some  new  trick  for  making  itself  look 
smarter.  Soldiers,  on  such  occasions,  arc  like 
a  lot  of  old  women  at  a  spring  cleaning.  The 
men  much  prefer  killing  Boches  to  being  in- 
spected. Burnishing  steel,  chasing  all  over  the 
country  to  buy  Brasso,  spending  fortunes  on 
polish  for  the  harness  all  seem  such  a  fruitless 
waste  of  time  when  the  Huns  are  hammering  our 


128  LIVING  BAYONETS 

line.     But,  of  course,  cleanliness  has  a  moral  effect 
on  men  who  have  been  long  under  shell-fire. 

This  is  a  discursive  sort  of  letter,  and  doesn't  con- 
tain much  real  news.     It's  just  for  remembrance. 

XLIX 

France 
June  4,  1918 

I've  just  left  the  gramophone  shrilly  declaring 
that  "  When  he  fancies  he  is  past  love,  it  is  then 
he  meets  his  last  love  and  he  loves  her  as  he 
never  loved  before."  London  comes  with  us  to 
the  Front.  We  hum  the  tunes  of  Piccadilly  and 
Leicester  Square,  and  we  scheme  such  splendid 
times  for  our  return.  Leave  has  opened  up  again, 
but  by  a  careful  calculation  I  have  discovered 
that  it  will  take  twenty-one  years  four  months 
and  three  days  till  my  turn  comes  round  at  the 
present  rate  of  allotments. 

Some  New  York  papers  have  just  arrived  and 
an  exceedingly  ancient  cake,  but  no  letters.  In 
the  midst  of  a  great  offensive  it  is  wonderful 
that  anything  gets  to  us  at  all.  We're  as  far 
away  from  you  both  in  reality  and  imagination 
as  though  we  lived  in  a  different  world.  Our 
standards  of  conduct,  normality,  right  living 
are  not  your  standards — our  hopes  and  fears 
are  all  different.  Again,  as  when  I  first  came  to 
the  Front,   everything   civilian  seems  a  tale   I 


LIVING  BAYOxNETS  129 

have  read  about.  I  cannot  believe  that  that 
person  who  was  in  New  York  last  October  was 
really  myself.  I  rather  wonder  at  him  and  at 
his  capacity  for  writing  about  the  commonplace 
events  of  the  present  life.  Now  I  couldn't  write 
a  line  about  the  war  if  my  life  depended  on  it. 
I  see  nothing  in  perspective  except  the  endless 
path  of  duty  which  leads  on  ahead  as  each  day 
introduces  itself.  To  what  goal  that  path  leads 
I  sometimes  try  to  guess — to  something  won- 
derful and  unforeseen,  I  have  no  doubt. 

I  judge  from  what  I  read  that  the  entire  world 
which  is  not  at  the  Front  is  anxious  and  depressed. 
We're  just  the  same  as  ever — cheery  and  wait- 
ing whatever  may  befall  with  a  stoicism  born 
of  confidence.  Our  behef  in  ourselves,  our  cause, 
and  our  ability  to  win,  never  wavers.  How  ex- 
traordinarily normal  we  are  you  could  hardly 
imagine.  The  moment  our  men  get  out  of  the 
trenches  they  begin  to  play  baseball,  football, 
cricket,  etc.  There's  a  big  lake  near  to  where 
we  are  with  red  cliffs  around  it.  Here  every 
evening  you  can  see  the  poised  white  figures  of 
soldiermen.  Last  Sunday  we  held  aquatic  sports 
there,  and  had  a  fine  display  of  swimming.  It's 
wonderful  to  see  the  chaps  so  happy  when  you 
remember  that  nine-tenths  of  their  companions 
of  this  time  last  year  are  either  wounded  or  dead. 
As  you  may  guess,  we  never  in  our  conversation 
9 


130  LIVING  BAYONETS 

call  attention  to  this  fact,  though  there  can  be 
few,  if  any,  who  forget. 

There  are  children  where  we  are  at  present. 
It's  amusing  to  see  them  making  friends  with 
our  boys.  They  slip  their  little  paws  into  the 
big  brown  hands  and  toddle  along  quite  proudly. 
I  don't  see  how  anyone  could  help  loving  our 
men  —  they're  so  simple.  Their  faults,  when 
you  know  the  hearts  which  they  hide,  become 
endearing.  I  think,  especially  when  I  see  them 
with  the  French  kiddies,  "  Of  such  are  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven." 

Please  thank  the  donor  of  the  cake  which 
arrived  to-day.  We're  eating  it — don't  tell  her 
it  was  dry. 

L 

France 
June  7,  1918 

Here's  a  glorious  summer  evening  —  the  end 
of  a  perfect  day,  during  which  I  have  done  my 
share  in  capturing  two  German  spies,  who  now 
repose  unrestfully  in  our  guard-room. 

This  morning,  when  I  was  leading  a  hundred 
mounted  men  along  a  road,  a  terrible  thing 
happened.  The  road  was  narrow  and  on  on 
side  of  it  motor-lorries  were  standing  ;  on  the 
other  side  was  a  little  unfenced  river.  Suddenly 
and  without  warning,  tearing  down  the  hill  ahead 
of  us,  came  the  enemy.     The  enemy  consisted 


LIVING  BAYONETS  131 

of  a  pair  of  mules  harnessed  to  a  heavy  iron 
roller.  The  roller  caught  my  lead-driver  and 
threw  him  and  his  two  horses  to  the  ground, 
then  it  charged  on  into  the  mass  behind  us. 
Miraculously  no  bones  were  broken ;  we  all  have 
nine  hves.  Those  mokes  have  put  us  up  to  a 
new  trick  for  dispersing  enemy  cavalry  which 
ought  to  be  effective.  Believe  me,  two  mad 
mules,  going  thirty  miles  an  hour  with  an  iron 
roller  behind  them,  are  utterly  demoraUzing.  It 
is  impossible  for  any  cavalry  in  the  world  to 
withstand  them. 

You  don't  know,  can't  guess,  how  letters  from 
home  buck  me  up  and  keep  the  lamp  of  my 
ideals  still  burning.  There  are  moments  when 
the  mere  mechanical  side  of  warfare  fills  one's 
mind  with  an  infinite  depression.  One  sees  men 
doing  splendid  acts,  day  in  day  out,  like  auto- 
matons animated  by  the  spring  of  duty.  One 
almost  forgets  that  there  is  any  human  element 
of  choice  in  the  matter,  or  a  difference  between 
fighting  and  fighting  well.  Wlien  your  pages 
come,  I  remember — remember  that  just  such 
affections  and  human  ties  bind  the  hearts  of  all 
who  are  out  here  to  hfe.  I  begin  to  see  my  chaps 
as  personalities  again  and  not  as  only  soldiers. 

Outside  the  chaps  are  singing  "  O  my,  I  don't 
want  to  die  ;  I  want  to  go  home."  Now  they've 
changed  to  "  Take  me  Over  to  Bhghty." 


132  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LI 

France 
June  8,  1918 

Last  night  I  saw  the  old  lady  who  nursed  me 
up  so  that  I  was  fit  to  come  and  meet  you  in 
London  when  you  all  came  in  1917  from  America. 
Seeing  her  again  brought  back  all  sorts  of  mem- 
ories of  the  depressions  and  exaltations  of  other 
days.  I  think  I  have  been  both  sadder  and  more 
happy  since  the  war  began  than  in  all  the  other 
years  of  my  life.  And  I  used  to  write  about  the 
world  not  as  it  is,  but  about  the  world  as  I  would 
have  made  it,  had  I  been  God.  Now  I'm  trying 
to  see  things  as  they  are,  with  the  inevitable  God 
shining  through  them.  Here,  at  the  Front, 
God  is  ever5rwhere  apparent  —  but  not  the 
cathedral  God  I  had  imagined — not  the  majestic 
God  with  subUme  uplifted  eyes  which  know 
nothing  of  finite  terror.  The  God  of  the  Front 
has  brave  eyes  which  have  suffered ;  His  mouth 
is  a  human  mouth,  which  has  known  the  pain  of 
parting  and  kisses  ;  His  hands  are  roughened  and 
burnt  and  bloody ;  there  is  the  stoop  of  agony 
in  His  shoulders  and  the  hint  of  a  valiant  jest 
in  His  splendid  bearing  of  defiance.  He  is  one  of 
us.  He  is  us  entirely.  He  is  no  longer  remote 
and  eternal.  For  us  He  has  again  become  flesh 
— He  is  our  comrade ;  He  is  the  man  upon  our 
left  and  our  right  hand,  who  goes  into  battle 


LIVING  BAYONETS  133 

with  U5  ;  He  is  our  dead.  We  cannot  escape  Him  ; 
the  pettinesses  of  our  sins  are  forgotten  in  the 
resemblance  of  our  neighbours  to  His  majesty. 
Nowadays  I  cannot  think  of  the  poet's  Christ, 
wandering  through  Gahlean  hhes  in  a  woman's 
robes.  It's  His  manly  death,  His  white  timeless 
bod}'  on  the  Cross  that  I  remember.  Without 
Calvary  all  His  words  would  have  been  uncon- 
vincing and  He  Himself  a  dreamer's  fancy.  It 
was  only  on  the  Cross  that  Christ  became  flesh 
— aU  that  went  before  is  hke  a  lovely  legend 
gradually  materiah/ing  in  the  atmosphere  of 
tragedy.  God  save  us  from  being  always  happy. 
It's  the  chance  of  being  always  happy  that  I 
dread  most  after  the  war.  There's  a  terrible 
corpulence  about  happiness  which  borders  very 
closely  on  physical  grossness.  To  strive  and 
keep  on  striving — that  is  what  I  want  for  the 
world  when  war  is  ended,  and  to  have  to  pay  with 
sacrifice  for  each  advance.  I  don't  think  any  of 
us  who  come  back  will  covet  virtue  as  our  goal, 
save  in  as  far  as  virtue  embraces  everything  that  is 
meant  by  manliness.  To  be  virtuous  in  the  origi- 
nal sense  was  just  that — to  be  physically  perfect. 

Ah,  how  greedy  I  become  out  here  to  see  some 
of  the  sudden  qualities  which  war  has  called  out, 
transplanted  into  the  civilian  world.  I  so  fear  that 
with  peace  those  quahties  may  be  debased  and  lost. 

More     than    anything    else    the    gramophone 


134  LIVING  BAYONETS 

makes  me  remember  the  old  days  and  the  old 
aims  and  desires.  It's  the  greatest  miracle  of 
the  century  that  Caruso  and  Harry  Lauder  and 
George  Robey,  with  all  the  best  of  music  and 
laughter-makers,  can  step  into  our  dug-out  from 
the  point  of  a  needle.  When  we  move,  what- 
ever else  is  left  behind,  the  gramophone  always 
goes.  It  travels  in  G.S.  wagons,  on  the  foot-board 
of  limbers — in  all  sorts  of  ways.  We're  feeling 
sentimental ;  we  crank  up  the  canned  music. 
Above  the  roar  of  the  guns  we  hear,  "  All  that  I 
want  is  someone  to  love  me,  and  to  love  me 
well."  We're  feeling  merry,  so  we  dance  to 
"  Arizona."  All  the  world  of  forgotten  pleasures 
can  come  to  us  through  that  needle-point.  And 
I — whenever  it  starts — I  see  home  pictures 

Then  in  an  extraordinarily  poignant  way  I  feel 
earnest  to  have  lived,  loved,  done  something  big 
before  I  die.  Everything  already  done  seems 
insignificant  and  worthless.  It's  the  feeling 
which  you  once  called  "  divine  discontent." 

It's  evening,  as  it  always  is  when  I  write  to 
you.  Next  door  a  little  refugee  child  is  chanting 
his  prayers  under  the  direction  of  his  father. 
One  can  hear  the  humming  of  planes  overhead. 
A  funny  world  !  How  persistent  the  religious 
instinct  is,  that  men  should  still  credit  God  when 
their  hearts  are  bankrupt  ! 

Good-night,  I'm  going  to  bed  now. 


LI\IXG  BAYONETS  135 

LII 

France 
June  12,  1918 

With  me  it's  6.30  in  the  evening.  I'm  sitting 
in  a  farmhouse  overlooking  the  usual  French 
farmyard.  The  chickens  fly  in  at  the  window 
— also  the  cats.  The  window  is  my  own  mode 
of  entrance  ;  I  feel  like  a  burglar  when  I  enter 
my  "  bedroom  "  in  this  fashion  after  midnight. 
Two  other  officers  share  the  floor  with  me — 
hterally  the  floor,  for  we  use  our  sleeping-sacks. 

There's  a  Uttle  boy  about  three,  with  long  hair, 
so  that  at  first  we  mistook  him  for  a  girl,  who 
has  become  the  temporary  mascot  of  the  battery. 
He  carries  the  broken  remains  of  a  toy  rifle  and 
falls  in  with  the  men  on  parades,  holding  one  of 
the  fellows'  hands.  He's  picked  up  the  detail 
for  "  'Shun  !  "  and  "  Stand  at  Ease  !  "  and  carries 
out  the  orders  as  smartly  as  anyone,  looking 
terrifically  serious  about  it.  The  men  call  him 
"  Uttle  sister  "  on  account  of  his  appearance,  and 
make  him  a  great  pet.  I  left  him  sobbing  his 
heart  out  to-day  when  I  had  to  leave  him  behind 
after  he  had  fallen  in  with  a  squad  of  riflemen. 

Tliere's  a  genuine  little  girl  who  is  our  friend, 
of  whom  I  am  even  fonder.  She's  a  refugee  kiddy 
of  about  thirteen — slim  and  pretty  as  a  fairy, 
with  a  long  corn-gold  plait  of  hair  down  her  back. 


136  LIVING  BAYONETS 

As  soon  as  we  start  the  gramophone  going  she 
peeps  noiselessly  as  a  spirit  through  the  window  ; 
then  one  of  us  Lifts  her  across  the  sill  and  she 
sits  on  our  knees  with  her  face  hidden  shyly 
against  our  shoulders. 

I'm  at  present  reading  Gulliver's  Travels. 
That  I  should  be  reading  them  in  such  different 
circumstances  from  any  that  Swift  could  have 
imagined,  kindles  the  art  of  writing  books  into 
a  new  romance.  To  be  remembered  years  after 
you  yourself  have  forgotten,  to  have  men  prying 
into  the  workings  of  a  brain  which  has  been  dust 
in  a  shell  for  two  centuries,  is  a  very  definite 
kind  of  immortality.  To  be  forgotten — that  is 
what  we  most  dread.  Never  to  have  happened 
would  not  matter  ;  but  to  have  happened,  to 
have  walked  the  world,  laughed,  loved,  created, 
and  then  to  be  treated  as  though  we  had  not 
happened,  there  lies  the  sting  of  death.  The 
thought  of  extinction  offends  our  vanity  ;  we 
had  thought  that  we  were  of  more  consequence 
to  the  universe.  It  doesn't  comfort  us  to  be 
recalled  impersonally  in  the  mass,  as  the  men 
who  captured  Vimy  or  thrust  the  Hun  back 
from  some  dangerous  objective.  In  the  mass 
we  shall  go  down  through  history,  no  doubt,  but 
not  as  human  beings — only  as  heroes.  We 
would  rather  be  recalled  by  our  weaknesses — 
as  so-and-so  who  loved  a  certain  girl,  who  played 


LIVING  BAYONETS  137 

a  good  hand  of  poker,  who  overdrew  his  bank- 
account.  Out  here,  from  the  moment  a  man 
places  foot  in  France,  the  anonymity  of  death 
commences.  No  one  cares  who  he  was  in  a  pre- 
vious world,  what  he  did  for  a  living,  whether  he 
was  a  failure  or  a  success.  None  of  his  former 
virtues  stand  to  his  credit  except  as  they  con- 
tribute to  his  soldier-life  of  the  present.  None 
of  us  talk  about  our  past  ;  if  we  did,  our  company 
would  yawn  at  us.  Only  the  mail  arriving  at 
irregular  intervals  keeps  us  in  knowledge  that 
we  once  had  other  personalities.  Letters  are  like 
ghosts  of  a  world  abandoned,  tiptoeing  through 
the  dream  of  a  sleeper.  Between  you  and  us 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed Not  that  we  re- 
sent it.  Someone  has  to  pay  a  price  for  the 
future  safety  of  the  world  ;  out  of  all  the  ages 
we  have  been  chosen  as  the  persons.  There  is 
nothing  to  resent, — quite  the  contrary.  Only, 
now  and  then  creeps  in  the  selfish  longing  that 
we  may  be  remembered  not  as  soldiers,  but  as 
what  we  were — in  our  weakness  as  well  as  in  our 
strength. 

You're  in  a  country  place  where  I  have  not 
been  and  which  I  cannot  picture.  I  hope  you're 
all  enjoying  yourselves.  There's  no  need  to 
worry  on  my  account. 


138  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LIII 

France 
June  20,  1918 

Here  I  am  in  the  kind  of  place  that  WiUiam 
Morris  wrote  about.  My  room  is  in  a  monastery, 
from  which  all  but  two  of  the  monks  have  long 
since  fled.  The  nunnery,  in  which  the  rest  of 
the  officers  are  billeted,  was  long  since  vacated. 
A  saint  was  born  here,  and  there  used  to  be  pil- 
grimages to  his  shrine  ;  now  only  the  two  monks 
remain  to  toll  the  bell,  play  the  organ,  and  to  go 
through  all  the  religious  observances.  The  walls 
of  the  room  in  which  I  am  writing  are  covered 
with  illuminated  prayers.  Pinned  on  the  door 
outside  is  the  list  of  all  the  duties  for  the  day. 
From  my  window  I  can  see  the  two  faithful  ones 
pacing  in  the  overgrown  garden,  counting  their 
beads,  murmuring  their  prayers,  and  behaving  in 
every  way  as  though  the  war  had  not  commenced. 
Such  despising  of  external  happenings,  even  though 
it  be  mistaken,  calls  for  admiration  of  sorts. 

The  country  is  lovely  and  green  now,  all  except 
the  immediate  battle-line.  Birds  sing,  flowers 
bloom,  and  fleecy  white  clouds  go  drifting  over- 
head. One  takes  chance  baths  in  chance-found 
brooks,  and  the  men  spread  their  tents  in  the 
meadows.  There's  everything  that  life  can  offer 
to  tempt  us  to  go  on  living  at  present.     There 


LIVING  BAYONETS  139 

are  moments  so  happy  that  I  almost  wish  that 
you  could  be  here  to  share  them. 

To-day  I'm  out  of  touch — no  letters  have 
arrived.  Perhaps  they  will  overtake  us  to- 
morrow. A  thrush  is  singing  in  the  monastery 
garden  and  the  slow  blue  twilight  is  falling. 
Mingling  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  song  of 
the  thrush  is  the  slow  continual  droning  of  a 
plane.  The  reminders  of  war  are  persistent  and 
incessant.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  war,  I  found 
a  strawberry  patch  this  afternoon  and  glutted 
myself. 

I  see  by  to-day's  paper  that  a  racket  has  started 
on  the  Italian  front.  The  Central  Powers  are 
declaring  their  weakness  by  striking  out  in  too 
many  directions.  We  give  and  we  give,  but  we 
never  break.  We're  waiting  for  America  and 
her  millions.  How  long  before  we  can  count 
on  them  to  help  us  to  attack  ? 

It's  extraordinary  how  the  belief  in  America 
has  grown.  First  of  all  we  said,  "  She  has  come 
in  too  late  "  ;  then,  "  She'll  help  us  to  win  more 
quickly  "  ;  and  now,  "  We  need  her."  If  America 
has  done  nothing  else,  she  has  strengthened  our 
moral  all  along  the  line  ;  we  fight  better  because 
we  know  that  she  is  behind  us. 

You're  somewhere  where  the  world  is  intensely 
quiet.  I  shall  think  of  you  where  the  world  is 
happy. 


140  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LIV 

France 
June  20,  1918 

I've  just  finished  reading  a  big  batch  of  mail, 
and  have  had  dinner  and  now  sit  looking  out  on 
the  drenched  country  which  is  covered  with  a 
shabby  evening  sky.  In  the  church,  which  ad- 
joins the  monastery  in  which  I  stay,  monks  are 
chanting.  They  are  always  chanting.  One 
wonders  for  what  it  is  that  they  pray  ;  deeds  at 
any  moment,  let  alone  the  present,  are  so  much 
better.  I  can  picture  what  would  happen  here 
if  the  Germans  came.  I  have  caught  myself 
thinking  of  Marie  Odelle  ;  our  scenery  is  similar 
to  that  pictured  in  the  play.  Strange  how  one 
goes  to  imagination  in  search  of  illustrations  of 
reality  ! 

You,  at  your  end,  seem  to  have  been  having 
some  wildly  exciting  times  with  your  processions 
in  which  the  Kaiser  has  been  publicly  done  away 
with.  It's  a  phase  which  all  countries  go  through, 
I  suppose.  England  did  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war.  But  now  we  entrain  for  the  Front  without 
bands  playing,  and  do  our  best  not  to  attract 
attention.  We're  a  little  ashamed  of  arousing 
other  people's  emotions  on  our  behalf.  All  we 
want  is  a  "  Cheerio  and  God  bless  You,"  for  our 
good-bye.     If  we  come  back,  it  will  be  "  jolly 


LIVING  BAYONETS  141 

fine";  and  if  we  don't,  "C'est  la  guerre" — 
we  shrug  our  shoulders.  In  either  event  we  see 
no  reason  why  the  feelings  should  be  harrowed 
of  those  who  stop  behind. 

After  a  series  of  very  early  morning  rises,  I 
have  been  picturing  to  myself  the  day  when  I 
once  again  wake  up  at  the  Ritz,  with  a  camou- 
flaged foreigner  to  bring  my  breakfast  to  my 
pillow  and  then  leave  me  in  peace  till  twelve 
o'clock.  I  wonder  now  why  I  ever  left  my  bed 
in  peace  times  and  find  myself  marvelling  at 
my  unnecessary  energy.  The  French  patriot  who 
held  receptions  and  did  the  business  of  the  day 
while  sitting  in  a  bath  of  milk,  had  mastered  the 
art  of  life.  Unfortunately,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
he  was  made  a  glaring  example  of  sloth  by  being 
"  done  in  "  while  thus  pleasurably  occupied, 

I'm  off  to  do  my  rounds  as  orderly  officer  now. 
My  sergeant  is  waiting,  so,  as  the  men  say,  "  I 
must  ring  off." 

LV 

France 
June  23,  1918 

Here  I  sit  on  a  summer's  evening  in  the  red- 
tiled  kitchen  of  an  old  farmhouse.  Immedi- 
ately under  the  open  window  to  my  right  is  the 
inevitable  manure-heap — the  size  of  which,  they 
say,  denotes  the  extent  of  the  farmer's  wealth. 
Barn-roofs,  ochre-red,  shine  vividly  in  the  pale 


142  LIVING  BAYONETS 

gold  of  the  sunset ;    at  the  end  of  the  yard  the 
walls  faU  away,  giving  the  glimpse  of  an  orchard 
with    gnarled,     lichen-covered    fruit-trees.      All 
kinds  of  birds  are  twittering  and  singing  ;   house- 
swallows  dart  and  dive  across  open  spaces.     In 
the  distance  the  guns  are  booming.     War  affords 
one  strange  contrasts  of  sight  and  sound.     Not 
many  of  the  peasants  have  moved  away  ;    they 
have  great  faith  in  the  Canadians.     Every  now 
and  then  a  forlorn  group  will  come  trailing  down 
the  road  between  the  hedges  :   an  old  tumble- 
down cart,  drawn  by  an  old  tumble-down  horse, 
piled  and  p3n:amided  dangerously  high  with  old 
tumble-down  furniture.     The  people  who  accom- 
pany the  vehicle  are  usually  ancient  and  tumble- 
down as  well.     They  make  me  recall  someone's 
description   of   the   Irish   emigrants   on   the   St. 
Lawrence,  travelHng  with  "  ragged  poverty  on 
their  backs."     In  contrast  with  these  few  strag- 
ghng  fugitives,   hounded  by  avaricious  fear,   is 
the  calm  of  a  country  billowy  with  grain  and 
sociable  with  the  grinning  contentment  of  quite- 
at-home  British  Tommies.     Everjrthing  in  their 
attitude  seems  to   assure  the   French  peasant, 
"  Don't  worry,   old  dear.     We're  here.     Every- 
thing's all  right."     From  barns  and  houses  and 
bivouacs  come  the  sounds  of  gramophones,  play- 
ing selections  from  quite  the  latest  musical  come- 
dies.    If  you  wander  back  into  the  fields  you  will 


LIVING  BAYONETS  143 

find  horsemen  going  over  the  jumps,  men  play- 
ing baseball  and  cricket,  officers  getting  excited 
over  tennis.  We  even  held  our  Divisional  Sports 
the  other  day — and  this  in  the  midst  of  the 
war's  greatest  offensive.  This  "  'Arf  a  mo'. 
Kaiser,"  attitude  of  the  Canadians  would  give 
you  some  idea  of  the  esteem  in  which  we  hold 
the  Hun.  Our  backs  are  not  against  the  wall. 
We  still  have  both  the  time  and  the  inchnation 
to  be  sportsmen  and  to  laugh.  I'm  sure  the 
enemy,  grimly  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  breaking 
our  hne,  never  allows  himself  a  moment  for 
recreation,  and  I  should  think  his  balloon- 
observers,  spying  on  us  from  the  baskets  of  his 
distant  sausages,  must  be  very  chagrined  by  our 
frivohty.  The  papers  say,  and  very  probably 
they're  right,  that  German  strategists  are  far  ahead 
of  those  possessed  by  the  Allies  ;  but  our  men  have 
learnt  a  trick  worth  all  the  strategy — they  have 
learnt  to  laugh  both  in  success  and  adversity. 
In  this  war,  I  beheve  we  shall  find  that  he  who 
has  acquired  the  habit  of  a  Hght  heart  will  do  the 
laughing  last.  I  should  very  much  hke  to  know 
how  many  gramophones  travel  with  the  German 
Tommies  ;  hardly  any,  I'll  bet.  They  have  their 
bands  with  their  patriotic  music,  keeping  always 
before  the  men  the  singleness  of  their  purpose. 
The  singleness  of  their  purpose  tires  them  out. 
On  our  side  of  the  line  patriotism  is  the  last  thing 


144  LIVING  BAYONETS 

you  hear  about.  Thank  God,  we've  got  time  to 
forget  it. 

Whenever  I  start  trying  to  explain  to  you  the 
psychology  of  our  fighting-men  I'm  always  con- 
scious that,  even  while  I'm  telling  you  the  abso- 
lute truth,  with  the  same  words  I'm  creating  a 
wrong  impression.  Fighting-men  aren't  magnifi- 
cent most  of  the  time  ;  they're  not  idealists  ; 
they're  not  heroic.  Very  often  they're  petty  and 
cynical  and  cowards.  They're  only  magnificent  and 
idealistic  and  heroic  in  the  decision  that  brought 
them  here,  and  in  the  last  supreme  moment  when 
they  bring  their  decision  to  fulfilment. 

In  a  letter  I  received  from  Paris  the  other  day 
the  puzzle  of  the  modern  soldier  was  very  well 
expressed.  "  I  don't  believe,"  it  said,  "  I  will 
ever  get  used  to  the  courage  of  the  men  who  go 
on  and  on  with  this  terrible  game.  I'm  think- 
ing more  now  of  the  French  and  the  British 
soldiers,  who  are  mended  up  only  to  go  at  it 
again.  I  never  can  get  used  to  it  or  take  it  as  a 
matter  of  course.  When  I  think  for  a  minute 
how  it  hurts  to  have  a  tooth  filled,  I  wonder  that 
all  the  armies  of  the  world  don't  get  up  and  run 
away  from  each  other  of  one  accord — every 
one  who  isn't  a  hero  or  a  fool,  that's  to  say." 

When  I  think  over  the  problem  calmly  I  have 
the  same  wonder.  The  problem  was  so  neatly 
expressed  that  I  read  the  passage  out  to  the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  145 

mess.  They  stopped  in  a  round  of  poker  to 
listen.  "  Well,  which  are  we,"  I  asked  ;  "  heroes 
or  fools  ?  "  "  Fools,"  they  said  unanimously,  and 
then  went  on  playing  their  hands  again.  They're 
right  ;  we  are  fools.  We're  certainly  not  heroes. 
We're  fools  for  a  kind  of  kingdom  of  heaven's 
sake — but  we  don't  act  like  the  heaven  part  of 
it  any  more  than  we  talk  about  our  patriotism. 
Any  mention  of  either  would  make  us  shudder. 

I  wonder  what  motive  brought  the  heathen 
Chinee  to  the  Western  Front.  I've  been  told  that 
he  came  that  he  might  buy  food  for  his  family, 
because  there's  a  famine  in  China.  Maybe. 
His  bronze  face  stares  up  into  ours  from  out 
the  green-gold  of  the  standing  wheat — stares 
up  into  ours  with  the  inscrutable  gaze  of  an  age- 
old  Buddha.  He's  the  one  human  being  on  the 
Western  Front  who  neither  by  acts  nor  words 
explains  his  nobility.  Nobility  there  must  have 
been  to  induce  him  to  come  ;  no  reasoning  creature 
would  have  jeopardized  his  body  out  of  lust. 

Last  night  I  rode  beneath  a  full  white  moon  for 
miles  through  the  standing  crops.  I  only  struck 
a  road  to  cross  it  and  say  good-bye  to  it — then 
on  and  on  with  the  soft  swish  of  the  swelling 
stalks  against  my  stirrups.  Shall  we  recall  our 
old  panics  and  delights  if  we  live  to  reach  nor- 
mality again  ?  Will  normality  satisfy  ?  Shall  we 
be  content  to  know  that  all  the  hoard  of  the  future 
10 


146  LIVING  BAYONETS 

years  is  ours  ?  In  a  word,  shall  we  ever  again 
desire  to  be  safe  ?  Questions  which  none  of  us 
can  answer  ! 

LVI 

France 
June  27,  1 91 8 

Here's  a  glorious  June  morning  with  a  touch 
of  chill  in  the  air  and  a  jolly  gold  sun  shooting 
arrows  into  the  wheatfields.  The  chief  sound  I 
hear  is  the  rattling  of  head-chains,  for  the  drivers 
are  hard  at  work  shining  up  their  harness.  These 
summer  days  go  by  very  pleasantly,  but  they 
throw  one's  thoughts  back  a  little  wistfully  to  the 
Junes  of  other  years — especially  those  in  which 
the  train  came  skidding  down  the  mountains 
from  Spokane  to  the  ranch  and  the  lake.  All 
day,  from  first  waking  in  the  morning,  we  begin 
to  gamble  on  our  chances  with  the  mail.  It 
arrives  any  time  between  two  and  five  o'clock  ; 
the  evening  passes  in  reading  and  re-reading  our 
letters  and  concocting  replies.  I  think  some 
letters  from  you  are  nearly  due  again  and  I'm 
hoping  for  one  this  afternoon. 

I  think  I  mentioned  that  our  battery  has  a 
French  baby  boy  of  three  for  its  mascot,  just  at 
present.  He  has  been  christened  Bully  Beef,  but 
for  what  reason  I  don't  know.  Bully  Beef  falls  in 
beside  the  Sergeant -Major  on  all  parades.   During 


LIVING  BAYONETS  147 

stables  he  inspects  the  horses,  toddling  round 
the  lines  and  hanging  on  to  the  finger  of  an  officer. 
The  other  day  he  fell  into  the  river  while  the 
horses  were  watering.  No  one  noticed  his  dis- 
appearance for  a  minute  or  two  ;  then  he  was 
discovered  standing  nearly  chin-deep,  doing  a 
very  quiet  cry.  He  was  consoled  with  pennies, 
and  I  undertook  to  lead  him  up  to  his  mother. 
There  are  many  stories  about  Bully  Beef's  origin. 
Some  say  that  his  father  is  a  rich  Frenchman 
already  married  ;  others,  a  dead  poilu  ;  others,  a 
sergeant  of  a  Highland  Division  which  was 
encamped  in  this  neighbourhood.  His  mother 
is  an  exceedingly  pretty  French  girl  and  she  is 
not  manied.  I  can't  help  feeling  that  Bully 
Beef  must  be  half  British,  for  he  isn't  timid  like 
a  French  child.  On  the  contrary,  he  hides  in 
the  hedges  and  throws  stones  at  us  when  he  is 
offended,  and  has  a  finely  exaggerated  sense  of 
his  childish  dignity.  Wliat  memories  he'll  have 
when  he's  become  a  man. 

There  was  another  character  I  mentioned  in  a 
previous  letter — I  called  him  "  Battling  Brown  " 
— the  chap  has  D.S.O.'s  and  Military  Crosses 
with  bars  to  them  and  delights  in  putting  on 
raids.  I've  since  found  that  he  cuts  a  notch  in 
his  revolver  for  every  Hun  he  has  killed  with  it. 
His  present  weapon  has  eighteen  notches  and 
the  wooden  handle  of  the  first  is  notched  to  pieces. 


148  LIVING  BAYONETS 

It's  refreshing  to  find  a  man  on  our  side  of  the 
line  who  knows  how  to  hate.  If  we  had  hated 
more  at  the  first,  the  war  would  be  ended.  Per- 
sonally I  can  only  hate  ideas  and  nations — not 
persons ;  I  acknowledge  this  as  a  weakness  in 
myself. 

I  don't  think  any  of  us  realize  quite  how  much 
war  has  changed  us,  particularly  in  our  relations 
to  sex.  Women  had  grown  discontented  with 
being  wives  and  mothers,  and  had  proved  that 
in  many  departments  they  could  compete  with 
men.  This  competition  was  responsible  for  a 
growing  disrespect.  Men  were  beginning  to 
treat  women  in  a  way  they  demanded — as 
though  they  were  men.  Women  were  beginning 
to  regard  men  with  a  quiet  sex-contempt.  It 
looked  as  if  chivalry  and  all  that  made  for  knight- 
hood were  at  an  end.  Then  came  war,  calling 
men  to  a  sacrifice  in  which  women  had  no  share 
— could  not  share  because  they  were  physically 
incapable  of  fighting — and  women  to  the  only 
contribution  they  could  make,  mercy  and  mother- 
hood. We've  been  flung  back  on  our  primal 
differences  and  virtues.  War  has  cut  the  knotted 
sex-emancipation  ;  we  stand  up  to-day  as  ele- 
mentally male  and  female  as  when  the  Garden  of 
Eden  was  depopulated.  Amongst  our  fighting- 
men,  women  actually  hold  the  place  which  was 
allotted  to  them  by  idealists  in  troubadour  times. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  149 

Mothers  and  sisters  and  sweethearts,  remembered 
at  this  distance,  have  made  all  women  sacred. 
A  new  medievalism  and  asceticism  have  sprung 
out  of  our  modern  tragedy,  enacted  beneath  the 
sea,  on  the  land  and  in  the  clouds.  The  tragedy, 
while  modern  to  us,  is  actually  the  oldest  in  the 
world — merely  death. 

It's  evening  now.  No  letter  from  home  came 
this  afternoon. 

LVII 

France 
July  4,  1918 

I  AM  now  attached  with  two  guns  to  the  infantry 
on  a  special  job.  I  Hve  with  the  battalion — 
speak  about  "  our  battalion,"  in  fact— and  share 
quarters  with  the  Trench  Mortar  officer.  The 
country  is  green  and  fragrant  with  dog-roses. 
The  dead  have  been  gathered  \ip  and  lie  in  little 
scattered  graveyards.  Our  living  men  spread 
their  blankets  between  the  mounds  and  at  night 
hang  their  equipment  on  the  crosses.  War  robs 
men  of  all  fear  of  the  supernatural — or  is  it  that 
the  dead  have  become  our  brothers  ? 

One  writes  a  description  of  battlefields  to-day 
and  it  is  untrue  to-morrow.  Everything  has 
changed  in  ihc  past  year.  Siege  warfare,  with 
deep  trenches  and  guns  in  positions  of  observa- 


150  LIVING  BAYONETS 

tion,  is  becoming  more  rare  ;  we  are  more  mobile 
now  and  see  more  of  the  country.  I  believe, 
before  many  months  are  out,  the  dream  of  every 
gunner  along  the  Western  Front  will  have  come 
true,  and  we  shall  be  firing  at  the  enemy  over  open 
sights  and  coming  into  action  on  the  gallop. 
It  will  be  far  more  sporting  and  exciting.  The 
Trench  Mortar  officer  with  whom  I  am  living 
remembers  that  kind  of  work  in  the  early  days, 
when  my  battery  was  still  firing  on  the  enemy 
while  the  Hun  was  bayoneting  the  batteries 
behind.  He  has  a  great  tale  of  how  he  came  right 
through  the  enemy  without  knowing,  bringing 
up  with  him  a  precious  load  of  small-arms  ammuni- 
tion to  his  General,  who  was  cut  off  by  the  enemy. 
He  and  his  five  men  were  given  rifles,  and  together 
with  the  waifs  and  strays  of  many  broken  regi- 
ments held  the  line  against  the  advance  on 
Calais.  Experiences  such  as  that  are  worth  living 
for  ;  I'm  hopeful  that  before  I  take  off  khaki  I 
may  be  in  something  of  the  kind. 

You  needn't  think  of  me  any  more — at  least 
for  the  present — as  living  in  beastliness  and 
corruption.  I  daresay  the  country  where  I  am 
is  almost  as  beautiful  as  where  you  are  spending 
your  holidays.  The  Hun  did  the  Allies  a  good 
turn  when  he  advanced,  for  he  shoved  us  back 
out  of  the  filth  of  three  years'  fighting  into  clean- 
ness.    One  can  see  deserted  cottages  with  their 


LIVING  BAYONETS  151 

gardens  full  of  flowers,  and  green  woods  shaking 
their  plumes  against  blue  skies.  At  one  of  our 
halts  the  men  did  themselves  very  well  with 
baskets  of  trout  ;  they  caught  the  trout  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  flinging  bombs  into  the  river. 
The  concussion  killed  the  fish  and  they  floated 
to  the  surface. 

For  the  present  that  is  all  my  news. 

LVIII 

France 
July  10,  19 18 

I  AM  delighted  to  see  that  every  day  the  prophecies 
I  made  in  Out  to  Win  are  coming  true.  The 
attack  that  the  Americans  put  on  on  4th  July 
is,  to  my  mind,  one  of  the  most  significant 
things  that  has  happened  yet.  Their  battle-cry, 
"  Lusitania,"  says  everything  in  one  word  con- 
cerning their  purpose  in  coming  to  France.  If  I 
were  a  Hun  I  should  find  it  more  terrifying  than 
the  most  astounding  statements  of  armaments 
and  men.  I  can  picture  the  enemy  in  those  old 
shell-holes  of  the  Somme  that  I  know  so  well. 
It's  early  morning,  and  a  low  white  mist  steals 
ghost-like  over  that  vast  graveyard,  where 
crumbling  trenches  and  broken  entanglements 
mark  the  resting-places  of  the  dead.  The  enemy 
would  be  sleepy-eyed  with  his  long  vigil,  but 
with    the    vanishing    of    niglit    he    would    fancy 


152  LIVING  BAYONETS 

himself  safe.  Suddenly,  hurled  through  the  dawn, 
comes  the  cry,  "  Lusitania ! "  It  must  have 
sounded  like  the  voice  of  conscience — the  old 
and  boasted  sin  for  which  medals  were  struck, 
the  infamy  of  which  was  worn  as  a  decoration, 
rising  out  of  the  past  to  exact  suffering  for  suffer- 
ing, panic  for  panic,  blood  for  blood.  Whoever 
chose  that  battle-cry  was  a  poet — ^he  said  every- 
thing in  the  shortest  and  most  rememberable 
way.  America  is  in  France  to  act  as  the  revenge 
of  God.  She  has  suffered  in  the  spirit  what 
France  has  suffered  in  the  flesh  ;  through  being 
in  France  she  has  learnt  from  the  French  the 
justice  of  passionate,  punishing  hate.  I  can 
think  that  somewhere  beneath  the  Atlantic  the 
bodies  of  murdered  children  sat  up  at  that  cry  ; 
I  can  believe  that  the  souls  of  their  mothers  went 
over  the  top  with  those  American  boys.  "  Lusi- 
tania !  "  The  white-hot  anger  of  chivalry  was  in 
the  cry. 

Yes,  and  we,  too,  are  learning  to  hate.  For 
years  we  have  hesitated  to  dogmatize  as  to  which 
side  God  favours  ;  but  now,  since  hospitals  have 
been  bombed  and  the  women  who  came  to  nurse 
us  have  been  slaughtered,  Cromwell's  religious 
arrogance  has  taken  possession  of  our  hearts — 
"  Let  God  arise,  and  let  His  enemies  be  scattered." 
When  it  was  only  we  men  who  were  wounded  and 
killed  by  the  Hun  we  could  afford  to  regard 


LIVING  BAYONETS  153 

him  with  an  amused  tolerance,  but  now This 

is  how  we  have  changed  :  we  should  welcome  our 
chance  to  kill  at  close  quarters  and  to  forget 
mercy.  This  time  last  year  we  were  proud  to 
say  that  we  had  no  personal  animosity  for  the 
individual  German  ;  it  sounded  so  strong  and 
impartial.  We  don't  feel  that  way  now  ;  can't 
feel  that  way.  At  last,  because  of  our  women 
who  are  dead,  we  have  learnt  the  magnanimity  of 
hatred.  Germany  has  entered  a  new  phase  of 
the  war — a  phase  which  her  persistent  bnitaUty 
has  created.  She  will  find  no  more  smihng  faces 
on  our  side  of  No  Man's  Land  when  she  hfts  up 
her  hands,  shouting  "  Kamerad  !  "  We  are  not 
her  comrades  ;  we  never  shall  be  again  so  long  as 
our  race-memory  lasts.  Like  Cain,  the  brand 
of  murder  is  on  her  forehead  and  the  hand  of 
every  living  creature  is  against  her.  When  she 
pleads  with  us  her  common  humanity,  we  will 
answer  "  Lusitania  !  "  and  charge  across  the 
Golgothas  and  the  mists  of  the  dawn,  driving 
her  into  obhvion  with  the  bayonet.  No  truth  of 
the  spirit  which  her  voice  utters  will  ever  be  truth 
for  us  again.  It  has  taken  four  years  to  teach  us 
our  lesson  ;  we  were  slow  ;  we  gave  quarter  ; 
but  we  have  learnt. 


154  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LIX 

France 

July  II,  1918 

I've  returned  from  being  with  the  infantry  and 
am  back  with  my  battery  now.  For  the  next 
few  days  I  shall  probably  be  out  of  touch  with 
my  incoming  mail. 

I  have  spoken  several  times  to  you  about  the 
test  of  war  ;  how  it  acknowledges  one  chief  virtue 
— courage.  A  man  may  be  a  poet,  painter,  may 
speak  with  the  tongue  of  angels  ;  but,  if  he  has 
not  courage,  he  is  as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling 
cymbal.  The  other  day  I  was  accidentally  the 
witness  to  the  promulgation  of  a  court-martial. 
The  man  was  an  ofhcer  ;  he  had  been  sentenced 
to  be  shot,  but  the  order  had  been  changed  to 
cashiering.  There,  in  the  sunhght,  all  his  brother 
officers  were  drawn  up  at  attention.  Across  the 
fields  the  men  whom  he  had  commanded  were 
playing  baseball.  He  was  led  out  bareheaded. 
The  sentence  and  the  crime  for  which  he  had 
been  sentenced  were  read  aloud  to  him  in  an  un- 
steady voice.  When  that  was  ended,  an  officer 
stepped  forward  and  stripped  the  buttons  and  the 
badges  of  rank  from  his  uniform.  It  was  like  a 
funeral  at  which  his  honour  was  buried.  Under 
an  escort,  he  was  given  "  Right  turn,"  and 
marched  away  to  meet  the  balance  of  life  that 


LIVING   BAYONETS  155 

remained.  In  peace  times  he'd  have  been  reck- 
oned a  decent-looking  chap,  a  httle  smart, 
but  handsome — the  kind  of  fellow  of  whom  some 
mother  must  have  been  proud  and  whom  probably 
at  least  one  girl  loved.  A  tall  chap,  too — six 
foot  at  least.  I  see  him  standing  in  the  strong 
sunlight,  white-faced  and  dumb — better  dead — 
despised.  His  fate  was  the  fate  which  many  of 
us  feared  before  we  put  on  khaki  when  the  call 
first  came.  We  had  feared  that  we  might  not 
be  able  to  stand  the  test  and  might  be  shot  behind 
the  lines.  How  and  why  we  can  stand  it  we  our- 
selves cannot  say.  It  was  all  a  gamble  at  the  start. 
Here  was  one  man  who  had  failed.  The  arithmetic 
of  his  spiritual  values  was  at  fault  :  he  had  chosen 
bitter  life  when  death  would  have  been  splendid. 
This  must  all  sound  very  strange  to  you  in 
your  environment,  where  your  honour  and  life 
are  safe.  Perhaps  I  should  not  intrude  such 
scenes  upon  you. 

LX 

Franxe 

July  15,  1918 

The  mail  has  just  come  up  to  us.  The  runner 
stuck  his  head  into  the  hole  in  the  trench  where 
I  live  and  shoved  in  a  pile  of  letters.  "  How  many 
for  me  ?  "  I  asked.     "  All  of  them,"  he  said. 

I'm  all  alone  at  the  battery,  the  major  having 
gone  forward  to  reconnoitre  a  position  and  all 


156  LIVING  BAYONETS 

the  other  subalterns  being  away  on  duties — so 
I've  had  a  quiet  time  browsing  through  my 
correspondence.  A  Hun  cat  sits  at  the  top  of 
the  dug-out  across  the  trench  and  bhnks  at  me. 
We  found  him  on  the  position.  He's  fat  and 
sleek  and  plausible-looking.  I  can't  get  it  out  of 
my  mind  that  he's  kept  up  his  strength  by  batten- 
ing on  the  corpses  of  his  former  owners.  Between 
the  guns  there  are  two  graves  ;  one  to  an  un- 
known British  and  the  other  to  an  unknown 
German  soldier. 

The  battlefield  itself  stretches  away  aU  billowy 
with  hay  for  miles  and  miles.  When  a  puff  of 
wind  blows  across  it,  it  rustles  Hke  fire.  The 
sides  of  the  trenches  are  gay  with  poppies  and  corn- 
flowers. The  larks  sing  industriously  overhead,  and 
above  them,  hke  the  hum  of  a  swarm  of  bees,  pass 
the  fighting  planes.  Miles  to  the  rear  I  can  hear 
the  strife  of  bands,  playing  their  battahons  up  to 
the  hne.  A  brave,  queer,  batthng  world  !  If  one 
hves  to  be  old,  he  will  talk  about  these  days  and 
persuade  himself  that  he  longs  to  be  back,  if  the 
time  ever  comes  when  life  has  lost  its  challenge. 

The  Hun  doesn't  seem  to  be  so  frisky  as  he 
was  in  March  and  April.  Now  that  he's  quieting 
down,  we  begin  to  lose  our  hatred  and  to  speak 
of  him  more  tolerantly  again.  But  whatever 
may  be  said  in  his  defence,  he's  a  nasty  fellow. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  157 

Since  I  started  this  letter  I've  dined,  done  a 
lot  of  work,  watched  a  marvellous  sunset,  and 
received  orders  to  push  up  forward  very  early  in 
the  morning.  I  shall  probably  send  you  a  line 
from  the  O.P.  The  mystery  of  night  has  settled 
do^^^l.  Round  the  western  rim  of  the  horizon 
there  is  still  a  stain  of  red.  Under  the  dusk, 
limbers  and  pack  horses  crawl  along  mud  trails 
and  sunken  roads.  We  become  populous  when 
night  has  fallen. 

LXI 

France 
July  17,  1918 

To-night  brought  a  great  wad  of  American 
papers.  WTiat  a  time  America  is  having — all 
shouting  and  anticipation  of  glory  without  any 
suspicion  of  the  cost.  War's  fine  when  it's 
khaki  and  drums  on  Fifth  Avenue — if  it  wasn't 
tortured  bodies,  broken  hearts,  and  blinded  eyes. 
Where  I  am  the  dead  lie  thick  beneath  the  sod  ; 
poppies  pour  like  blood  across  the  landscape,  and 
cornflowers  stand  tall  in  sockets  empty  of  eyes. 
The  inscription  "  Unknown  Soldier  "  is  written 
on  many  crosses  that  grow  like  weeds  from  the 
shell-holes.  All  the  feet  that  marched  away 
with  shouting  now  lie  silent  ;  their  owners  have 
even  lost  their  names.  Could  death  do  more  ? 
Where   I  live  at  present  everything  is  blasted, 


158  LIVING  BAYONETS 

stagnant,  decayed,  morose.  War's  a  fine  spectacle 
for  those  who  only  cheer  from  the  pavement. 

It  isn't  that  I'm  angry  with  people  for  seizing 
life  and  being  gay.  We're  gay  out  here — but 
we've  earned  the  right.  Many  of  us  are  happier 
than  we  ever  were  in  our  lives.  Why  not  ?  For 
the  first  time  we're  quite  sure  every  minute  of  the 
day  that  we're  doing  right.  And  that  certainty 
is  the  only  excuse  for  being  happy  while  the  Front 
line  is  suffering  the  tortures  of  the  damned. 

I  came  down  this  morning  from  doing  forward 
work  ;  it  had  been  raining  in  torrents  and  the 
trenches  were  awash.  I  sleep  to-night  at  the 
battery  and  to-morrow  I  go  forward  again.  It's 
really  great  fun  forward  when  it's  fine.  All  day 
you  watch  the  Hun  country  for  signs  of  movement 
and  snipe  his  support-trenches  and  back-country. 
Far  away  on  the  horizon  you  watch  plumes  of 
smoke  trail  from  the  chimneys  of  his  towns,  and 
try  to  guess  his  intentions  and  plans.  War's  the 
greatest  game  of  the  intellect  yet  invented  ;  very 
little  of  its  success  to-day  is  due  to  brute  strength. 

It's  night  now.  I'm  sitting  in  my  shirt-sleeves, 
writing  by  the  light  of  a  candle  in  an  empty 
bottle.  A  row  is  going  on  outside  as  of  "  armed 
men  falling  downstairs,"  to  borrow  Stevenson's 
phrase.  It's  really  more  like  a  dozen  celestial 
cats  with  kettles  tied  to  their  tails.  I  wonder 
what  God  thinks  of  it  all ;    of  all  the  kings,  He 


LIVING  BAYONETS  159 

alone  is  silent  and  takes  no  sides,  notwithstanding 
the  Kaiser's  "  Me  und  Gott." 

My  jolly  little  major  has  just  looked  up  to 
suggest  that  the  war  won't  be  ended  until  all  the 
world  is  under  arms.     He's  an  optimist. 

LXII 

France 
July  18,  19 18 

I'm  up  forward,  sitting  on  a  bank,  looking  at  the 
Hun  country  through  a  hedge.  I  know  you'd 
give  anything  to  be  with  me.  In  front  there's  a 
big  curtain  of  sea-grey  sky,  against  which  planes 
crawl  like  flies.  A  beautiful  half-moon  looks 
down  at  me  with  the  tragic  face  of  Harlequin. 
Far  away  across  a  plain  furrowed  by  shell -fire 
the  spires  and  domes  of  cities  in  the  captured 
territory  shine.  Like  all  forbidden  lands,  there 
are  times  when  the  Hun  country  looks  exquisitely 
and  unreally  beautiful,  as  though  it  were  tempting 
us  to  cross  the  line. 

I've  just  left  off  to  watch  a  squadron  of  enemy 
planes  which  have  been  attempting  to  get  across 
to  our  side.  Everything  has  opened  up  on 
them  ;  machine  guns  are  spouting  their  luminous 
trails  of  tracer  bullets  ;  archies  are  bursting  little 
cotton-wool  clouds  of  death  between  them  and 
their  desire.  They  evidently  belong  to  a  circus, 
for   they're   slipping   and   tumbhng   and   looi)ing 


i6o  LIVING  BAYONETS 

like  great  gulls  to  whom  the  air  is  native.  Ah, 
now  they've  given  it  up  and  are  going  home 
thwarted.  I  wonder  what  the  poor  old  moon 
thinks  of  all  these  antics  and  turmoils  in  the 
domain  which  has  been  hers  absolutely  for  so 
many  aeons  of  nights. 

The  horrible  and  the  beautiful  blending  in  an 
ecstasy,  that  is  what  war  is  to-day.  All  one's 
senses  are  unnaturally  sharpened  for  the  apprecia- 
tion of  both  happiness  and  pain.  You  walk  down 
a  road  where  a  shell  fell  a  minute  ago  ;  the  question 
always  in  your  mind  is,  "  Why  wasn't  I  there  ?  " 
You  shrug  your  shoulders  and  smile,  "  I  may  be 
there  next  time  " — and  bend  all  your  energies 
towards  being  merry  to-day.  The  threat  of  the 
end  is  very  provocative  of  intensity. 

It's  nearly  dark  now  and  I'm  writing  by  the 
moonlight.  One  might  imagine  that  the  angels 
were  having  pillow-fights  in  their  bedrooms  by 
the  row  that's  going  on  in  the  sky.  And  there 
was  a  time  when  the  occasional  trolley  beneath 
my  windows  used  to  keep  me  awake  at  night  ! 

5  a.m.  The  letters  came  last  night.  You  may 
imagine  the  place  in  which  I  read  them — lying  on 
a  kind  of  coffin-shelf  in  a  Hun  dug-out  with  the 
usual  buzzing  of  battened  flies  and  the  usual  smell 
and  snoring  of  an  unwashed  B.C.  party.  How 
good  it  is  to  receive  letters  ;  they're  the  only  future 
we  have.     After  I'd  sent   the  runner  down  to 


LIVING  BAYONETS  i6i 

the  battery  I  had  to  go  forward  to  a  Gomorrha 
of  fallen  roofs,  which  stands  almost  on  the  edge 
of  No  Man's  Land.  Stagnant  shell-holes,  rank 
weeds,  the  silence  of  death,  lay  all  about  me,  and 
along  the  horizon  the  Hun  flares  and  rockets 
danced  an  impish  jig  of  joy.  WTien  the  war  is 
ended  we  shall  miss  these  nights.  Strange  as  it 
sounds,  we  shall  look  back  on  them  with  wist- 
fulness  and  regret.  Our  souls  will  never  again 
bristle  with  the  same  panic  of  terror  and  daring. 
We  shall  become  calm  fellows,  filling  out  our 
waistcoats  to  a  contented  rotundity  ;  no  one  will 
believe  that  we  were  once  the  first  fighting  troops 
of  the  European  cock-pit.  We  shall  argue  then, 
where  to-day  we  strike.  We  shall  have  to  preach 
to  make  men  good,  whereas  to-day  we  club  vice 
into  stupor.     We  shall  miss  these  nights. 

I  glance  up  from  my  page  and  gaze  out  through 
the  narrow  sht  from  which  I  observe.  I  see  the 
dear  scarlet  poppies  shining  dewy  amid  the 
yellow  dandelions  and  wild  ox-eyed  daisies. 
I  am  very  happy  this  morning.  The  world  seems 
a  good  place.  For  the  moment  I  have  even  given 
over  detesting  the  Hun.  With  luck,  I  tell  myself, 
I  shall  sit  in  old  gardens  again  and  read  the  old 
vohmies,  and  laugli  with  the  same  dear  people 
that  1  used  to  love.     With  luck — but  when  ? 


II 


i62  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LXIII 

France 
July  19,  1918 

We're  all  sitting  round  the  table  studying  maps 
of  the  entire  Western  Front  and  prophesying 
the  rapid  downfall  of  the  Hun.  It's  too  early 
to  be  optimistic,  but  things  are  going  excellently 
and  the  American  weight  is  already  beginning  to 
be  felt.  It  may  take  two  years  to  reach  the 
Rhine,  but  we  shall  get  there.  Until  we  do  get 
there,  I  don't  think  we  shall  be  content  to  stop. 
We  may  not  all  be  above  ground  for  the  end, 
but  people  who  are  like  us  will  be  there. 

My  batman  has  just  returned  to  the  guns  from 
the  wagon-lines,  bringing  me  two  letters  and  a 
post-card.  They  were  most  welcome.  After 
reading  them  I  went  out  into  the  moonlight  to 
walk  over  to  the  guns,  and,  such  is  the  nature  of 
this  country,  though  the  journey  was  only  200 
yards,  I  lost  myself.  Everything  that  was  once 
a  landmark  is  levelled  fiat — there's  nothing  but 
shell-holes  covered  with  tangled  grass,  barbed 
wire,  exploded  shell-cases,  and  graves.  I  can  quite 
understand  how  men  have  wandered  clean  across 
No  Man's  Land  and  found  themselves  the  guests 
of  the  Hun. 

I  think  I  once  mentioned  the  man  we  have 
cooking  for  our  mess  at   present — how   he  was 


LIVING  BAYONETS  163 

no  good  as  a  cook  until  he  got  word  that  his  wife 
had  been  drowned  in  Canada ;  his  grief  seemed 
to  give  him  a  new  pride  in  himself  and  since  his 
disaster  our  meals  have  been  excellent.  This 
morning  I  found  a  curious  document  on  my  table, 
which  ran  as  follows  :  "  Sir,  I  kan't  cock  with- 
out stuf  to  cock  with."  I  was  at  a  loss  to  dis- 
cover its  meaning  for  some  time.  Why  couldn't 
he  cock  ?  Wliy  should  he  want  to  cock  ?  How 
does  one  cock  ?  And  whether  he  could  or 
couldn't  cock,  why  should  he  worry  me  about  it  ? 

Then  the  widower  presented  himself,  standing 
sooty  and  forlorn  in  the  trench  outside  the  mess. 
The  mystery  was  cleared  up. 

The  mess-cart  is  just  up,  and  I'm  going  to  send 
this  off,  that  it  may  reach  you  a  day  earUer. 

LXIV 

France 
July  23,  1918 

I'm  sitting  in  my  "  summer-house  "  in  the  trench. 
One  side  is  unwalled  and  exposed  to  the  weather  ; 
a  curtain  of  camouflage  stretches  over  the  front 
and  disguises  the  fact  that  I  am  "  in  residence." 
For  the  last  twenty-four  hours  it's  been  raining 
hke  mad,  blowing  a  hurricane  and  thundering 
as  though  all  the  clouds  had  a  sneezing  fit  at 
once.  You  can  imagine  the  state  of  the  trenches 
and  my  own  drowned  condition  when  I  returned 


i64  LIVING  BAYONETS 

to  the  battery  this  morning  from  my  tour  of  duty 
up  front.  It  seems  hardly  credible  that  in  so 
short  a  time  mud  could  become  so  muddy.  How- 
ever, I  usually  manage  to  enjoy  myself.  Yester- 
day while  at  the  O.P.  I  read  a  ripping  book  by 
"  Q."  with  almost — not  quite — the  Thomas 
Hardy  touch.  It  was  called  The  Ship  of  Stars, 
and  was  published  in  1899.  Where  it  fails,  when 
compared  with  Hardy,  is  in  the  thinness  of  its 
story  and  unreality  of  its  plot.  It  has  all  the 
characters  for  a  titanic  drama,  but  having 
created  them,  "  Q."  is  afraid  to  let  them  be  the 
brutes  they  would  have  been.  How  many 
novelists  have  failed  through  their  determination 
to  be  quite  gentlemanly,  when  merely  to  have  been 
men  would  have  made  them  famous  !  If  ever  I 
have  a  chance  again  I  shall  depict  men  as  I  have 
seen  them  out  here — animals,  capable  of  animal 
lusts,  who  have  angels  living  in  their  hearts. 

To-day  has  the  complete  autumn  touch  ;  we 
begin  to  think  of  the  coming  winter  with  its 
drenched  and  suUen  melancholy — its  days  and 
nights  of  chill  and  damp,  telescoping  one  into 
another  in  a  grey  monotony  of  grimness.  Each 
summer  the  troops  have  told  themselves,  "  We 
have  spent  our  last  winter  in  France,"  but  always 
and  always  there  has  been  another. 

Yet  rain  and  mud  and  melancholy  have  their 
romance — they    lend    a    blurred    appearance    of 


LIVING  BAYONETS  165 

timelessness  to  a  landscape  and  to  life  itself. 
A  few  nights  ago  I  was  forward  observing  for  a 
raid  which  we  put  on.  The  usual  panic  of  flares 
went  up  as  the  enemy  became  aware  that  our 
chaps  were  through  his  wire.  Then  machine 
guns  started  ticking  like  ten  thousand  lunatic 
clocks  and  of  a  sudden  the  S.O.S.  barrage  came 
down.  One  watched  and  waited,  sending  back 
orders  and  messages,  trying  to  judge  by  signs 
how  affairs  were  going.  Gradually  the  clamour 
died  away,  and  night  became  as  silent  and  dark 
as  ever.  One  waited  anxiously  for  definite  word  ; 
had  our  chaps  gained  what  they  were  after,  or 
had  they  walked  into  a  baited  trap  ? 

Two  hours  elapsed  ;  then  through  the  loneliness 
one  heard  the  lagging  tramp  of  tired  men,  which 
came  nearer  and  drew  level.  You  saw  them 
snowed  on  by  the  waning  moon  as  they  passed. 
You  saw  their  rounded  shoulders  and  the  fatness 
of  their  heads — you  knew  that  they  were  German 
prisoners.  Limping  in  the  rear,  one  arm  flung 
about  a  comrade's  neck,  came  our  wounded. 
Just  towards  dawn  the  dead  went  by,  lying  with 
an  air  of  complete  rest  upon  their  stretchers.  It 
was  like  a  Greek  procession,  frescoed  on  the 
mournful  streak  of  vagueness  which  divides 
eternal  darkness  from  the  land  of  living  men. 
Just  so,  patiently  and  uncomplainingly  has  all  the 
world  since  Adam  followed  its  appointed  fate  into 


i66  LIVING  BAYONETS 

the  fold  of  unknowingness.  We  climb  the  hill  and 
are  lost  to  sight  in  the  dawn.  There's  majesty  in 
our  departure  after  so  much  puny  violence. 

And  God — He  says  nothing,  though  we  all 
pray  to  Him.  He  alone  among  monarchs  has 
taken  no  sides  in  this  war.  I  like  to  think  that 
the  Union  Jack  waves  above  His  palace  and  that 
His  angels  are  dressed  in  khaki — which  is  quite 
absurd.  I  think  of  the  irresistible  British 
Tommies  who  have  "  gone  west,"  as  whistling 
"  Tipperary  "  in  the  streets  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 
They  have  haloes  round  their  steel  helmets  and 
they've  thrown  away  their  gas-masks.  But  God 
gives  me  no  licence  for  such  imaginings,  for  He 
hasn't  said  a  word  since  the  first  cannon  boomed. 
In  some  moods  one  gets  the  idea  that  He's  con- 
temptuous ;  in  others,  that  He  takes  no  sides 
because  His  children  are  on  both  sides  of  No 
Man's  Land.  But  in  the  darkest  moments  we 
know  beyond  dispute  that  it  is  His  hands  that 
make  our  hands  strong  and  His  heart  that  makes 
our  hearts  compassionate  to  endure.  I  have 
tried  to  inflame  my  heart  with  hatred,  but  I 
cannot.  Hunnishness  I  would  give  my  life  to 
exterminate,  but  for  the  individual  German  I  am 
sorry — sorry  as  for  a  murderer  who  has  to  be 
executed.  I  am  determined,  however,  that  he 
shall  be  executed.  They  are  all  apologists  for 
the    crimes    that    have    been    committed ;     the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  167 

civilians,  who  have  not  actually  murdered,  are 
guilty  of  thieving  life  to  the  extent  of  having 
received  and  applauded  the  stolen  goods. 

We  had  a  heated  discussion  to-day  as  to  when 
the  war  would  be  ended  ;  we  were  all  of  the 
opinion,  "  Not  soon.  Not  in  less  than  two  years, 
anyway.  After  that  it  will  take  another  twelve 
months  to  ship  us  home."  I  believe  that,  and 
yet  I  hope.  Along  all  the  roads  of  France,  in  all 
the  trenches,  in  every  gun-pit  you  can  hear  one 
song  being  sung  by  poilus  and  Tommies.  They 
sing  it  while  they  load  their  guns,  they  whistle  it 
as  they  march  up  the  line,  they  hum  it  while 
they  munch  their  bully-beef  and  hard-tack.  You 
hear  it  on  the  regimental  bands  and  grinding  out 
from  gramophones  in  hidden  dug-outs  : 

"  Over  there.     Over  there. 
Send  the  word,  send  the  word  over  there, 
That  the  Yanks  are  coming " 

Men  repeat  that  rag-time  promise  as  though  it 
were  a  prayer,  "  The  Yanks  are  coming."  We 
could  have  won  without  the  Yanks — we're  sure 
of  that.  Still,  we're  glad  they're  coming  and  we 
walk  jauntily.  We  may  die  before  the  promise  is 
sufficiently  fulfilled  to  tell.  What  does  that 
matter  ?  The  Yanks  are  coming.  We  shall  not 
have  died  in  vain.  They  will  reap  the  peace  for 
the  world  which  our  blood  has  sown. 


i68  LIVING  BAYONETS 

To-night  you  are  in  that  high  mountain  place. 
It's  three  in  the  afternoon  with  you.  I  wish  I  could 
project  myself  across  the  world  and  stand  beside 
you.  Life's  running  away  and  there  is  so  much  to 
do  besides  killing  people.  But  all  those  things, 
however  splendid  they  were  in  achievement,  would 
be  shameful  in  the  attempting  until  the  war  is 
ended. 

Between  writing  this  I've  been  making  out  the 
lines  for  the  guns  and  running  out  to  fire  them — 
so  forgive  anything  that  is  disjointed. 

LXV 

France 
July  29,  1918 

I  HAVE  just  had  a  very  large  batch  of  letters  to 
read.  I  feel  simply  overwhelmed  with  people's 
affection.  I  have  to  spend  every  moment  of  my 
leisure  keeping  up  with  my  mighty  correspondence. 
The  mail  very  rarely  brings  me  a  bag  which  is 
totally  empty.  The  American  Red  Cross  in  Paris 
keeps  me  in  mind  continually.  I  had  thirty  gramo- 
phone records  and  twelve  razors  from  them  the 
other  day,  together  with  a  pressing  invitation  to 
get  a  French  leave  and  spend  it  in  Paris.  But 
your  letters  bulk  much  larger  in  numbers  than 
any  that  I  receive  from  anywhere  else.  I  always 
leave  home-letters  to  the  last — bread  and  butter 
first,  cake  last,  is  my  rule. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  169 

I  must  apologize  for  the  slackness  of  my  cor- 
respondence for  the  past  few  days,  but  two  of 
them  were  spent  forward  while  taking  part  in  a 
raid,  and  the  third  at  the  observing  post.  It 
rained  pretty  nearly  all  the  time  and  sleep  was 
not  plentiful.  Yesterday  I  spent  in  "  pounding 
my  ear  "  for  hours  ;  to-day  I'm  as  fresh  as  a  daisy 
and  writing  reams  to  you  to  make  up  for  lost  time. 

You'll  be  sorry  to  hear  that  a  favourite  little 
chap  of  mine  has  been  seriously  wounded  and 
may  be  dead  by  now.     A  year  ago,  at  the  Vimy 
show,   he   did   yeoman   service,   and   I  got   him 
recommended  for  the  Military  Medal.     He  was 
my  runner  on  the  famous  day.     He's  been  in  all 
sorts  of  attacks  for  over  three  years,  and  at  last  a 
stray   shell   got   him.     It   burst   about   ten   feet 
away,  wounding  him  in  the  head,  arm,  and  knee, 
besides  nearly  cutting  off  a  great  toe.     His  name 
was   Joy.     He  lived  up   to   his   name,  and   was 
carried  out  on  the  stretcher  grim,  but  bravely  smil- 
ing.    You  can't  dodge  your  fate  ;  it  searches  you 
out.     You  wonder — not  fearfully,  but  curiously — 
whose  turn  it  will  be  next.   For  yourself  you  don't 
much  care  ;  your  regrets  are  for  the  others  who  are 
left.     Still,  don't  you  think  that  I'm  going  west, 
I  have  an  instinct  that  I  shall  last  to  the  end. 

I  think  I  mentioned  the  pathetic  note  of  the 
mess  cook,  which  I  found  awaiting  me  one  morn- 
ing on  the  breakfast  table  ;   "  1  kan't  cock  without 


170  LIVING  BAYONETS 

stuf  to  cock  with."  The  history  of  our  experi- 
ments in  cooks  would  make  a  novel  in  itself. 
The  man  before  the  pathetic  beggar  was  a  miner 
in  peace  times  ;  as  a  cook  his  meals  were  like 
charges  of  dynamite — they  blasted  our  insides. 
The  worst  of  them  was  that  they  were  so  deceptive, 
they  looked  innocent  enough  till  it  was  too  late  to 
refuse  them.  You  may  lay  it  down  as  final  that 
all  cooks  are  the  dirtiest  men  in  any  unit.  The 
gentleman  who  couldn't  "  cock  "  earned  for  him- 
self the  title  of  the  "  World's  Champion  Long 
Distance  Dirt  Accumulator."  I  was  present 
when  the  O.C.  discharged  him.  He  sent  for  the 
man,  and  was  stooping  forward,  doing  up  his  boot, 
when  he  entered.  The  man  looked  like  the 
wrath  of  God — as  though  he  had  been  embracing 
all  the  denizens  of  Hell.  Without  looking  up  the 
O.C.  commenced,  "  Where  did  you  learn  to  pre- 
pare all  these  tasty  meals  you've  been  serving  us  ?" 

"  I  kan't  cock  without " 

"  I  know  you  can't  cock,"  said  the  O.C.  tartly  ; 
"  you  can't  even  keep  yourself  clean.  All  you 
know  how  to  do  is  to  waste  good  food.  I'm 
sending  you  down  to  the  wagon-lines,  and  if 
you're  not  washed  by  guard-mounting,  I've  given 
orders  to  have  you  thrown  into  the  horse-trough." 

Exit  the  "  cock." 

Your  letters  mean  so  much  to  me.  I  feel  that 
my  returns  are  totally  inadequate.     Good-bye ; 


LIVING  BAYONETS  171 

some  great  news  has  come  in  and  the  major  wants 
to  discuss  it. 

LXVI 

France 
July  30,  1918 

I'M  writing  to  you  to-day,  because  I  may  be  out 
of  touch  for  a  few  days,  as  it  looks  as  though  I 
was  going  to  get  my  desire — the  thing  I  came 
back  for.  Any  time  if  my  letters  stop  tempo- 
rarily, don't  get  nervous.  Such  things  happen 
when  one  is  on  active  service. 

It's  about  two  years  to-day  since  I  landed  in 
England  for  the  first  time  in  khaki  ;  since  then 
how  one  has  changed  !  I  can  scarcely  recognise 
myself  at  all.  It's  difficult  to  believe  that  I'm 
the  same  person.  Without  exaggeration,  the 
world  has  become  to  me  a  much  jollier  place 
because  of  this  martial  experience.  I  don't  know 
how  it  is  with  you,  but  my  heart  has  grown 
wings.  One  has  changed  in  so  many  ways — the 
things  that  once  caused  panic,  he  now  welcomes. 
Nothing  gives  us  more  joy  than  the  news  that 
we're  to  be  shoved  into  a  great  offensive.  It's  for 
each  of  us  as  though  we  had  been  invited  to  our 
own  wedding.  Danger,  which  we  used  to  dodge, 
now  allures  us. 

I  read  a  very  true  article  the  other  day  on  the 
things  which  we  have  lost  through  the  war      We 


172  LIVING  BAYONETS 

have  lost  our  youth,  many  of  us.  We  have 
foregone  so  many  glorious  springs — all  the 
seasons  have  sunk  their  tones  into  the  sombre 
brown-grey  mud  of  the  past  four  years.  We  have 
lost  all  our  festivals  of  affection  and  emotion. 
Sundays,  Christmases,  Rasters — they  are  all 
the  same  as  other  days — so  many  hours  useful 
only  for  the  further  killing  of  men.  "  You  will 
say,"  writes  my  author,  "  that  the  war,  after  all, 
will  not  last  for  ever,  and  that  the  man  and  woman 
of  average  longevity  will  live  through  threescore- 
and-ten  years  of  God's  wonderful  springs.  That 
to  a  very  minor  extent  is  true.  The  war  will  not 
last  for  ever  ;  but  the  memory  of  it,  the  suffering 
of  it,  the  incalculable  waste  of  it,  will  last  for  all 
that  remains  of  our  lives — which  is  '  for  ever,' 
after  aU,  so  far  as  you  and  I  are  concerned.''  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  there  are  years  and  years — 
but  the  years  in  which  a  man  and  woman  may 
know  that  they  are  alive  are  few — the  years  of 
love  and  of  beauty. 

I  agree  with  all  this  writer  says  ;  his  words 
voice  an  ache  that  is  always  in  our  hearts.  But 
he  forgets — life,  love,  youth  and  even  beauty 
are  not  everything.  The  animals  have  them. 
What  we  have  gained  is  a  new  standard  of  worth, 
which  we  have  won  at  the  expense  of  our  bodies. 
To  me  that  outweighs  all  that  we  have  lost.  I 
spoke  to  you  in  a  previous  letter  of  the  divine 


LIVING  BAYONETS  173 

discontent  which  goads  us  on,  so  that  when  we 
hav^e  attained  a  standard  of  which  we  never 
thought  ourselves  capable,  we  envy  a  new  and 
nobler  goal,  and  commence  to  race  towards  it. 
In  one  of  Q.'s  books  I  came  across  a  verse  which 
expresses  this  exactly  : 

"  Oh  that  I  were  where  I  would  be  ! 
Then  would  I  he  where  I  am  not. 
But  where  I  am  there  I  must  be  ; 
And  where  I  would  he,  I  can  not." 

Discontented,  ungrateful  creatures  we  are  ! 
And  yet  there  is  nobility  in  our  discontent. 

By  the  way,  over  the  doorway  of  my  O.P.  is 
chalked  this  sound  advice — "  Do  unto  Fritzie 
as  he  doth  unto  you.     But  do  it  first." 

LXVII 

France 
August  13,  1918 

I  haven't  seen  a  paper  for  nearly  a  fortnight, 
so  don't  know  what  news  of  the  Front  has  been 
published  and  can  risk  telling  you  nothing. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  I'm  having  the  most  choice 
experience  that  I've  had  since  I  took  up  soldiering. 
We  are  winged  persons — the  body  is  nothing  ; 
to  use  Homer's  phrase,  "  our  souls  rush  out  before 
us."  This  is  the  top-notch  of  life  ;  there  was 
nothing  like  it  before  in  all  the  ages.     We  triumph; 


174  LIVING  BAYONETS 

we  each  individually  contribute  to  the  triumph, 
and,  though  our  bodies  are  tired,  our  hearts  are 
elated.  We'll  win  the  war  for  you  and  bring 
peace  back  ;  even  the  most  dreary  pessimist  must 
believe  that  now. 

I  try  to  keep  notes  of  the  tremendous  tragedies 
and  glories  which  I  witness  hour  by  hour,  so  that 
one  day  I  can  paint  the  picture  for  you  as  it 
happened.  All  day  I  am  reminded  of  that  motto 
of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  "  What  I  spent,  I  had  ; 
what  I  saved,  I  lost ;  what  I  gave,  I  have."  So 
many  men  have  given  in  this  war — ^given  in  the 
sense  of  giving  all.  I  think  it  must  be  true  of 
them  wherever  they  are  now,  that  they  have  in 
proportion  to  their  sacrifice.  It  should  be  written 
on  the  white  crosses  above  all  our  soldiers,  "  What 
He  Gave,  He  Has."  What  we  are  trying  to  give 
is  heaven  to  the  world  ;  it  is  just  that  those  who 
fall  should  receive  heaven  in  return. 

LXVIII 

France 
August  14,  1918 

I  AM  writing  to  you  in  a  lull — I  may  not  have 
another  opportunity  for  days.  In  a  battle  one 
has  no  transport  for  conveying  letters — only  for 
ammunition,  wounded,  and  supplies.  I'm  stun- 
ningly well  and  bronzed.  The  weather  is  royal 
and  tropical  and,  best  of  all,  the  Hun's  tail  is 


LIVING  BAYONETS  175 

down  while  ours  is  pointing  heavenwards.  One 
of  my  gunners  was  complaining  this  morning  that 
it  was  "  a  hell  of  a  war."  It  was  the  smell  of  dead 
cavalry  horses  that  nauseated  him.  Another 
gunner  cheered  him  up,  "  Where's  the  use  of 
complaining,  Bill  ?     It's  the  only  war  we  have." 

That's  the  spirit  of  our  men.  It  may  be  a  hell 
of  a  war,  but  it's  the  only  one  we  have,  so  we  may 
as  well  grin  and  make  the  best  of  it.  In  the  past 
few  days  I  have  seen  more  than  in  all  my  former 
experience.  I  can  visualize  Waterloo  now — 
and  the  last  trump  :  the  hosts  of  death  deploying 
before  my  eyes.  That  one  still  walks  the  earth 
seems  wonderful.     God  is  very  lenient. 

But  there  is  nothing  to  fear  in  death — only 
the  thing  that  is  left  is  horrible — and  how 
horrible  !  But  the  things  that  are  left  are  not 
us — we  have  pushed  onwards  to  God. 

LXIX 

France 
August  15,  1918 

I  KEEP  on  dropping  you  little  notes  to  let  you 
know  that  everything  is  all  right  with  me.  It 
makes  me  very  happy  to  hear  from  you  ;  it  always 
does,  but  more  so  than  ever  nowadays. 

You  remember  R.  ?  A  few  days  ago  he  was 
killed.  He  was  just  ahead  of  me,  riding  up  the 
road.     I  did  not  see  his  face,  but  recognized  his 


176  LIVING  BAYONETS 

square-set  figure  and  divisional  patches.  He's 
not  had  much  of  a  run  for  his  money,  poor  chap. 
It  was  his  first  show,  but  he  died  game. 

How  much  longer  have  we  got  to  go  ?  It's  like 
a  long,  long  walk,  with  no  milestones,  towards  an 
unknown  destination.  If  we  only  knew  how 
much  farther  our  goal  lay,  it  would  be  easier.  I 
dreamed  last  night  of  Kootenay,  all  green  and  cool 
and  somnolent.  It  was  rest,  rest,  rest.  One 
gazed  through  the  apple-trees  to  the  quiet  lake 
and  felt  happy  in  the  too  much  beauty.  But 
please  don't  worry  about  me. 

LXX 

France 
August  17,  1918 

I'm  in  the  support  trenches  to-night  carrying  on 
with  the  infantry.  This  is  my  third  day  and  I 
am  relieved  to-morrow.  Yesterday  I  had  a 
gorgeous  spree  which  I  will  tell  you  about  some 
day.  I  was  out  in  front  of  our  infantry  in  an 
attack,  scouting  for  the  enemy.  This  war  may 
be  boring  at  times,  but  its  great  moments  hold 
thrills  which  you  could  find  nowhere  else.  It 
may  sound  mad,  but  it's  extraordinary  fun  to  be 
chased  by  enemy  machine-gun  bullets.  I've 
recently  had  fun  of  every  kind. 

Once   again   death   is   a   familiar   sight — tired 
bodies  lying  in  the  August  sunshine.     In  places 


LIVING  BAYONETS  177 

where  men  once  were,  birds  are  the  only  inhabit- 
ants remaining. 

In  this  hole  in  the  ground  where  I  am  sitting  I 
found  a  copy  of  the  New  York  Times  for  30th 
June,  with  the  first  advertisement  of  Out  to  Win. 
Less  than  thirty  hours  ago  the  Hun  was  sitting  here 
and  making  himself  quite  comfortable.  I  wonder 
if  he  was  the  owner  of  the  New  York  Times. 

I  was  reheved  last  night,  and  had  a  difficult 
walk  back  to  the  battery.  There  were  several 
letters  from  you  all  awaiting  me.  How  tired  I 
was  you  may  judge  when  I  tell  you  that  I  fell 
asleep  without  reading  them.  For  the  first  time 
in  a  fortnight  I  had  my  breeches  off  last  night. 
Up  forward  one  got  drenched  with  sweat  by  day 
and  lay  sodden  and  itchy  on  the  damp  ground  by 
night.  But  don't  think  we  weren't  cheerful — 
we  were  immensely  happy.  There's  no  game  in 
the  world  like  pushing  back  the  Hun.  I  had 
another  example  of  how  we  treat  our  prisoners. 
A  young  officer  came  in  captive  while  I  was 
shaving.  "  How  long  before  we  win  ?  "  I  asked 
him.  "  We  are  going  to  vin,"  he  replied.  "  If 
not,  vhy  because  ?  "  Our  Tommies  started  kid- 
ding him.  "  Say,  beau,  you  don't  look  much 
hke  winning  now."  And  then  they  offered  him 
water  and  food,  although  we  were  short  ourselves 

and  his  whole  deportment  was  insolent. 
12 


178  LIVING  BAYONETS 

During  an  attack,  while  I  was  within  200  yards 
of  the  advanced  post  and  pinned  under  a  barrage, 
a  Canadian  Tommy  wormed  his  way  towards  me. 
"  Say,  sir,  are  you  hungry  ?  Have  some  maple 
sugar  and  cake  ?  "  Was  I  hungry  !  He  had  re- 
ceived a  parcel  from  Canada  the  night  before  which 
he  had  taken  with  him  into  the  attack.  There, 
amongst  whizz-bangs  and  exploding  five-nines,  we 
feasted  together,  washing  it  all  down  with  water 
from  the  bottle  of  a  neighbouring  dead  Hun. 

You  can't  beat  chaps  who  joke,  think  of  home, 
go  forward,  and  find  time  to  love  their  enemies 
under  shell-fire.  They're  extraordinary  and  as 
normal  as  the  air. 

LXXI 

France 
August  20,  1918 

To-day  I  have  spent  some  time  in  composing 
recommendations  for  decorations  for  two  of  my 
signallers  who  were  with  me  in  my  latest  show. 
One  of  the  lucky  fellows  came  straight  out  of 
the  death  and  racket  to  find  his  Bhghty  leave- 
warrant  waiting  for  him.  Not  that  I  really  envy 
him,  for  I  wouldn't  lea',  e  the  Front  at  this  moment 
if  there  were  twenty  leave- warrants  offered  to  me. 
I  suppose  I'm  a  little  mad  about  the  war. 

I'm  still  very  tired  from  my  last  adventure  and 
am  limping  about  with  very  sore  feet — but  I'm 


LIVING  BAYONETS  179 

very  happy.  I  begin  to  feel  that  we're  drawing 
to  the  end  of  the  war.  The  Hun  knows  now 
that  the  jig  is  up.  He  was  going  to  have  defeated 
us  this  summer  while  the  Americans  were  still  pre- 
paring— instead  of  that  we're  pushing  him  back. 
I  don't  think  he  will  gain  another  square  yard  of 
France.  From  now  on  he  must  go  back  and  back. 
This  moving  battle  has  been  a  grand  experi- 
ence ;  it  enables  you  to  see  everything  unfolding 
Uke  a  picture — tanks,  cavalry,  infantry,  guns. 
The  long  marches  were  very  wearying,  and  we 
were  always  pushing  on  again  before  we  were 
rested.  Not  that  we  minded — the  game  was 
too  big.  The  first  day  of  the  attack  I  sailed  out 
into  the  blue  alone,  following  up  the  Hun.  I 
had  the  huge  feUcity  of  firing  at  his  retreating 
back  over  open  sights  at  a  range  of  less  than  1000 
yards.  We  pushed  so  far  that  night  that  we  got 
in  front  of  our  infantry  and  were  turned  back  by 
enemy  machine-gun  fire.  The  Hun  is  a  champion 
runner  when  he  starts  to  go  and  difficult  to  keep 
up  with.  However,  we  caught  him  up  several 
times  after  that  and  helped  him  to  hurry  a  bit 
faster.  I  never  saw  anything  liner  in  my  life 
than  the  clouds  of  cavalry  mustering — the  way 
the  horses  showed  their  courage  and  never  budged 
for  shell-lire  set  an  example  to  us  men.  The 
destruction  burst  in  the  midst  of  them,  but  they 
stood   hke  statues   till  the  order  was  given   to 


i8o  LIVING  BAYONETS 

advance.  Then  away  they  went,  Hke  a  whirlwind 
of  death,  with  the  artiUery  following  at  the  trot 
and  coming  into  action  point-blank.  I  came 
across  one  machine-gun  emplacement  that  a 
horseman  had  charged.  The  horse  lay  dead  on 
top  of  the  emplacement,  having  smothered  the 
machine  gunner  out  of  action.  That  day  when 
I  was  off  by  myself  with  my  two  guns,  I  fed  my 
horses  on  the  oats  of  the  fallen  cavalry  and  my 
men  on  the  rations  in  the  haversacks  of  the  dead. 
In  the  ripe  wheat  the  dying  stared  at  us  with 
uninterested  eyes  as  we  passed.  The  infantry 
going  cheering  by  when  we  were  firing,  waved  their 
hands  to  us,  shouting,  "  That's  the  stuff,  boys. 
Give  'em  hell !  "  We  gave  them  hell,  right  enough. 
I've  come  through  without  a  scratch  and  now 
I'm  off  to  bed.  Don't  worry  if  I  don't  write 
you — it's  impossible  sometimes,  and  I'll  always 
cable  through  London  as  soon  as  I  can. 

LXXII 

France 
August  22, 1918 

I  can't  sleep  to-night.  It's  nearly  one.  The 
candle  lights  up  the  mud  walls  and  makes  the 
other  occupants  of  my  dug-out  look  contorted 
and  grotesque.  They  sigh  and  toss  in  their 
dreams.  Now  an  arm  is  thrown  out  and  a  face 
is  turned.     They've  been  through  it,  all  of  them, 


LIVING  BAYONETS  i8i 

in  the  past  few  days.  They  have  a  haggard  look. 
And  somewhere  in  shell-holes,  wheatfields,  woods, 
they  lie  to-night — those  others.  Pain  no  longer 
touches  them — their  limbs  have  ceased  to  twitch 
and  their  breath  is  quiet.  They  have  given 
their  all.  For  them  the  war  is  finished — they 
can  give  no  more. 

Do  people  at  home  at  all  realize  what  our  men 
are  doing  and  have  done  ?  Coarse  men,  foul- 
mouthed  men — men  whose  best  act  in  life  is 
their  manner  in  saying  good-bye  to  it.  And  then 
there  are  the  high-principled  fellows  from  whom 
ideals  are  naturally  to  be  expected — whatever 
we  are,  we  all  go  out  in  the  same  way  and  in  the 
same  rush  of  determined  glory.  We  climb  the 
steep  ascent  of  Heaven  through  peril,  toil,  and 
pain — and  at  last  our  spirits  are  cleansed. 

I  think  continually  of  the  mothers  who  stand 
behind  these  armies  of  millions.  Mothers  just 
like  my  mother,  with  the  same  hopes  and  ambi- 
tions for  their  sons.  Poor  mothers,  they  never 
forget  the  time  when  the  hands  that  smite  to-day 
were  too  strengthless  to  do  more  than  grope  at 
the  breast.  They  follow  us  like  ghosts  ;  I  seem 
to  see  their  thoughts  like  a  grey  mist  trailing 
behind  and  across  our  strewn  battlefields.  When 
the  rain  descends  upon  our  dead,  it  is  their  tears 
that  are  falling.  The  whispering  of  the  wheat  is 
like  the  tij)toe  rustling  of  approaching  women. 


i82  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Pray  for  us ;  we  need  your  prayers — need  them 
more  than  you  think,  perhaps.  Tuck  us  up  in 
our  scooped-out  holes  with  your  love,  the  way 
you  used  to  before  we  began  to  adventure.  Above 
all  be  proud  of  us,  whether  we  stand  or  fall — 
so  proud  that  you  will  not  fret.  God  will  let 
us  be  little  again  for  you  in  Heaven.  We  shall 
again  reach  up  our  arms  to  you,  relying  on  your 
strength.  We  shall  be  afraid  and  cry  out  for  your 
comfort.  We're  not  brave — not  brave  naturally  ; 
we  shall  want  you  in  Heaven  to  tell  us  we  are  safe. 
So  many  thoughts  and  pictures  come  to  me 
to-night.  One  is  of  a  ravine  I  was  in  a  few  days 
ago,  all  my  men  mounted  and  waiting  to  move 
forward.  Wounded  horses  of  the  enemy  are 
limping  through  the  grass.  German  wagons, 
caught  by  our  shell-fire,  stand  silent,  the  drivers 
frozen  to  the  seats  with  a  terrifying  look  of  amaze- 
ment on  their  faces,  their  jaws  loose  and  their 
bodies  sagging.  Others  lie  twisted  in  the  grass 
— some  in  delirium,  some  watching.  We  shall 
need  all  our  water  before  the  day  is  over,  and 
have  no  time  to  help  them.  Besides,  our  own 
dead  are  in  sight  and  a  cold  anger  is  in  our  heart. 
The  stretcher-bearers  will  be  along  presently — 
time  enough  for  mercy  when  the  battle  is  won  ! 
We  ourselves  may  be  dead  before  the  sun  has  set. 
I  know  the  anger  of  war  now,  the  way  I  never 
did   in  the   trenches.     You  can   see   your   own 


LIVING  BAYONETS  183 

killing.  You  can  also  see  the  enemy's  work. 
And  yet.  through  it  all  down  come  our  wounded, 
supported  by  the  wounded  Huns. 

"  Those  chaps  are  very  good  to  you,"  one  of 
our  officers  said.  The  Tommy  grinned.  "  They 
have  to  be.  If  they  weren't,  I'd  let  the  daylight 
into  them.  I've  a  pocketful  of  bombs,  and  they 
know  it."  Well,  that's  one  incentive  to  friend- 
ship, however  reluctant. 

The  Huns  are  brave — I  know  that  now.  They 
endure  tests  of  pluck  that  are  well-nigh  in- 
credible. We  are  not  defeating  craven  curs.  I 
can  think  of  no  one  braver  than  the  man  who 
stays  behind  with  a  machine  gun,  fighting  a  rear- 
guard action  and  covering  his  comrades'  road  to 
freedom.  He  knows  that  he  will  receive  no 
quarter  from  our  people  and  will  never  live  to  be 
thanked  by  his  own.  His  lot  is  to  die  alone, 
hated  by  the  last  human  being  who  watches  him. 
They're  brave  men  ;  they  cease  fighting  only 
when  they're  dead. 

What  a  contrast  between  love  and  hatred — 
dreaming  of  our  mothers  to  the  last  "and  smash- 
ing the  sons  of  other  mothers.     That's  war  1 


i84  LIVING  BAYONETS 

LXXIII 

France 
August  22,  1918 

Here  I  am  lying  flat  on  my  tummy  in  the 
grass  and  spying  on  the  enemy  2000  yards  away, 
I  shall  be  here  for  twenty-four  hours.  There's 
no  sort  of  cover  and  the  sun  is  scalding.  Luckily 
we've  found  water  in  a  captured  village  near 
by  and  I  sent  our  linesmen  to  refill  our  bottles. 
There's  a  lull  for  the  moment  and  we  stretch 
ourselves  out  in  weary  contentment  The  body 
is  a  traitor  to  the  spirit — it  can  become  very 
tired. 

I  begin  to  see  the  end  of  the  war.  I  can  feel 
it  coming  as  I  never  did  before  since  I  struck 
France.  The  unbelievable  truth  begins  to  dawn 
on  me  that  we'll  be  coming  back  to  you — that 
we  shall  wake  up  one  morning  to  find  that  the 
world  has  no  fiu-ther  use  for  our  bombs  and 
bayonets.  Strange  !  After  so  much  killing,  to 
kill  will  be  again  a  crime.  We  shall  begin  to 
count  our  lives  in  years  instead  of  in  days. 

How  will  the  pictures  one's  memory  holds 
seem  then  ?  I  can  see,  as  I  saw  the  other  day,  a 
huge  German  lying  on  the  edge  of  a  wheatfield. 
His  knees  were  arched.  He  was  on  his  back.  His 
head  rolled  wearily  from  side  to  side.  The  thing 
that  fixed  my  attention  was  a  rubber  ground- 


LIVING  BAYONETS  185 

sheet  flung  hastily  across  his  stomach,  whether 
in  disgust  or  pity,  I  cannot  say.  I  had  my  guns 
drawn  up  in  column,  my  men  mounted,  all  ready 
to  trot  into  action — so  I  had  no  time  for  com- 
passion or  curiosity.  But  from  my  saddle  I  saw 
an  infantryman  raise  the  ground-sheet  and  under- 
neath there  was  nothing  but  a  scarlet  gap.  There 
were  many  sights  like  that  that  day.  There 
have  been  many  since  then.  I  have  seen  as  many 
parts  of  the  human  body  that  the  beautiful  white 
skin  tents,  as  a  student  of  anatomy.  What 
hatred  and  injustice  has  preceded  the  making 
possible  of  such  acts  ! 

But  in  these  places  where  horrors  have  been 
committed,  the  birds  still  flit  about  their  nests. 
When  the  tanks  and  the  cavalry  and  the  guns 
have  pushed  forward,  Nature  returns  to  her  task 
of  beautifying  the  world. 

How  I  would  like  to  sit  down  and  talk  with 
you  all.  When  the  war  is  over  I  can  see  us  going 
away  to  some  quiet  place  and  re-living  the  past 
and  re-building  the  future  with  words.  I  may 
see  you  sooner  than  either  of  us  expect  ;  there's 
always  the  chance  of  a  Blighty.  So  far,  beyond 
an  attack  of  trench-fever  from  which  I've  almost 
recovered,  I've  come  through  scatheless. 

By  the  time  this  reaches  you  I  shall  be  looking 
forward  to  leave.  Casualties  have  thinned  out 
the  numbers  on  the  leave-hst  and  I  stand  fairly 


i86  LIVING  BAYONETS 

high  now.  I  ought  to  see  England  again  in 
October. 

LXXIV 

France 
August  30,  1918 

This  is  only  a  brief  note  to  say  that  all  is  well 
with  me  and  to  ask  you  not  to  worry.  It's  two 
years  to-morrow  since  I  first  saw  the  Front — 
two  centuries  it  seems.  I'm  different  inside.  I 
don't  know  whether  my  outside  has  changed 
much — but  I  wish  sometimes  that  I  could  be 
back  again.  I  begin  to  be  a  little  afraid  that  I 
shan't  be  recognizable  when  I  return. 

The  journalists  have  been  very  free  in  their 
descriptions  of  our  doings — they  have  told  you 
everything.  If  I  told  a  tithe,  my  letter  would  not 
reach  you. 

LXXV 

France 
September  i,  1918 

This  is  just  another  httle  note  to  let  you  know 
that  I  am  safe  and  well.  I  am  allowed  to  say  so 
little  to  you  ;  that's  one  of  the  worst  penalties 
of  this  war — the  silence.  Yesterday  your  cable, 
sent  in  reply  to  mine  and  forwarded  from  London, 
arrived.  My  only  chance  of  relieving  your  sus- 
pense when  I  have  not  been  able  to  write  for 
some  time,  is  to  get  one  of  my  EngHsh  friends  to 
cable  to  you. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  187 

Did  you  see  the  good  news  concerning  R.  B.  ? 
He's  got  his  V.C.  for  saving  Hfe  under  shell-fire  in 
Zeebrugge  harbour.  His  M.L.  was  hit  fifty  times. 
I  remember  the  way  his  neighbours  used  to  pat- 
ronize him  before  the  war.  They  all  laughed 
when  he  went  to  Cahfornia  to  study  for  an  aero- 
plane pilot.  They  didn't  try  to  join  themselves, 
but  his  keenness  struck  them  as  funn3^  What 
could  a  man  who  was  half-blind  do  at  the  war, 
they  asked — a  man  who  ran  his  launch  into 
logs  on  the  lake,  and  who  crashed  in  full  daylight 
when  approaching  a  wharf  ?  WTien  he  had  been 
awarded  his  flying  certificate  at  the  American 
Air  School  our  R.F.C.  refused  to  take  him.  He 
tried  to  get  into  the  infantry,  into  everything, 
anything,  and  was  universally  turned  down  on 
the  score  of  weak  sight.  His  quixotic  keenness 
made  less  keen  spectators  smile.  Then,  by  a 
careless  chance,  he  got  himself  accepted  by  the 
R.N.V.R.  and  was  put  on  to  a  motor  launch. 
Everyone  pictured  him  as  colliding  with  every- 
thing solid  that  came  his  way,  and  marvelled  at 
the  shpshod  naval  tests.  But  it  wasn't  his  eye- 
sight and  hmitations  that  really  counted — it 
was  his  keenness.  In  two  years  he's  a  V.C,  a 
D.S.O.,  and  a  Lieutenant -Commander.  Before 
the  war  he  was  the  kind  of  chap  with  whom  girls 
danced  out  of  kindness     To-day  he's  a  hero. 

We  were  discussing  him  out  here  the  (  ther  day  ; 


i88  LIVING  BAYONETS 

he's  the  type  of  hero  this  war  has  produced — 
a  man  not  strong  physically,  a  man  self-depreciat- 
ing and  shy,  a  man  with  grave  limitations  and 
very  conscious  of  his  difference  from  other  men. 
This  was  his  chance  to  approve  himself.  People 
laughed  that  he  should  offer  himself  as  a  fighter 
at  all,  but  he  elbowed  his  way  through  their 
laughter  to  self -conquest.  That's  the  grand  side 
of  war — its  test  of  internals,  of  the  heart  and 
spirit  of  a  man  !  bone  and  muscle  and  charm  are 
only  secondary. 

The  big  things  one  sees  done  out  here — done 
in  the  way  of  duty — and  so  quietly  !  Whether 
one  comes  back  or  stays,  the  test  has  made  all 
the  personal  suffering  worth  while — for  one  hour 
of  living  to  know  that  you  have  played  the  man 
and  saved  a  fellow -creature's  life.  One  never 
knows  when  these  chances  will  come  ;  they  rush 
in  on  you  unexpectedly  and  expect  to  find  you 
ready.  In  the  encounter  the  character  built  up 
in  a  lifetime  is  examined  and  reported  on  by 
the  momentary  result. 

And  yet  how  one  suffers  for  the  suffering  he 
witnesses — the  suffering  of  horses  and  Huns,  as 
well  as  of  the  men  on  our  own  side.  The  silent, 
smashed  forms  carried  past  on  the  stretchers  ; 
the  little  groups  of  busy  men  among  whom  a 
shell  bursts,  leaving  those  who  do  not  rise.  And 
overhead  the  sky  is  blue   and  the  wind  blows 


LIVING  BAYONETS  189 

happily  through  the  sunshine.  "  Gone  west  " — 
that's  all,  to  the  land  of  departing  suns.  Some 
of  us  will  stay  to  sleep  among  the  gentlemen  of 
France.  In  either  event  we  are  fortunate  in  hav- 
ing been  given  the  privilege  to  serve  our  kind. 

LXXVI 

Prince  of  Wales  Hospital, 
London,  September  6,  191 8 

Here  I  am  once  again  in  a  clean  white  bed 
with  the  discreet  feet  of  nurses,  like  those  of 
nuns,  making  hardly  any  sound  as  they  pass  up 
and  down  the  corridor.  There's  just  one  other 
ofhcer  in  my  room.  His  leg  is  full  of  machine- 
gun  bullets,  and,  hke  myself,  he's  just  arrived 
from  France.  I've  not  got  used  to  this  new 
security  yet,  this  riejht  to  live,  this  ordered 
decency — all  of  which  seems  to  be  summed  up 
in  the  presence  of  women.  Less  than  three  days 
ago  I  saw  two  of  my  gun-teams  scuppered  by  shell- 
fire  and  the  horses  rolling  among  the  wounded 
men.  I  can't  get  the  sight  out  of  my  mind.  To 
be  alive  seems  an  unfair  advantage  I  have  taken. 
— And  all  the  time  I  want  to  be  back  in  the  thick 
of  it.  It  was  so  glorious — such  a  bon  little  war, 
as  we  say  out  there,  while  it  lasted. 

You'll    want    to    know    what    happened.     On 
2nd  September  at  dawn  we  set  out  as  the  point 


igo  LIVING  BAYONETS 

of  the  attacking  wedge  to  hammer  our  way  to 
Cambrai.  You  will  have  read  this,  and  more 
than  this,  already  in  your  papers.  After  we  had 
fired  on  the  barrage  for  several  hours,  and  our 
infantry  had  advanced,  we  began  to  move  our 
battery  forward  by  sections.  The  major  was 
away  on  leave  to  Blighty,  so  the  captain  was 
acting  O.C.  He  went  forward  to  observe  and 
reconnoitre  ;  I  was  left  to  move  up  the  battery. 
My  own  section  was  the  last  to  move.  On  the 
road  I  was  met  by  a  mounted  orderly  who  handed 
me  a  written  order  to  join  another  battery  which 
was  doing  forward  work  on  opportunity  targets. 
I  reported  to  this  battery  and  had  brought  my 
two  guns  into  position  on  their  right  flank,  when 
the  first  shell  burst.  The  gun-teams  had  not 
unhooked  ;  it  burst  directly  under  the  centre  team 
and  scuppered  the  lot,  wounding  all  the  drivers 
and  killing  one  of  the  gunners.  We  had  got  the 
guns  into  action,  when  another  shell  burst  be- 
side the  left-hand  gun,  near  which  I  was  standing, 
wounding  all  the  gun-crew  except  one  man.  I 
myself  got  a  piece  in  the  head,  between  the  ear 
and  the  left  temple.  It  was  a  lucky  chance  that 
I  wasn't  killed  outright.  The  fragment  of  shell 
struck  upwards  and  under  my  steel  helmet,  cut- 
ting the  chin-strap  and  the  brass  link  which 
holds  the  strap  to  the  helmet.  It  was  diverted 
by  a  rivet  in  the  strap,  so  instead  of  going  straight 


LIVING  BAYONETS  191 

into  my  head,  it  glanced  along  the  skull.  I  was 
X-rayed  in  France  and  was  to  have  been  operated 
on,  but  there  was  no  time  with  so  many  casualties 
coming  down,  so  I  was  sent  to  England  for 
the  operation.  I  was  in  luck  to  escape  so  lightly. 
I  was  so  grateful  to  my  helmet  that  I  hid  it  in 
my  trench  coat  and  smuggled  it  back  to  England 
with  me  as  a  curiosity — which  is  not  allowed. 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  After  the  second 
shell  had  caught  us  and  others  were  popping  all 
about  us,  I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  enemy 
had  a  direct  line  on  us.  I  have  since  been  told 
that  he  put  on  a  strong  counter-attack  and  bent 
our  line  back  for  a  time,  so  that  our  artillery 
were  very  near  up  and  it's  likely  that  he  could 
observe  us.  I  sent  back  for  my  teams  after  we 
had  carried  out  our  wounded,  intending  to  drag 
the  guns  out  farther  to  the  right  flank.  Another 
gun-team  was  scuppered  and  all  my  gunners 
were  knocked  out  but  three  men.  The  enemy 
now  started  to  pay  attention  to  my  ammunition 
wagons,  putting  one  shell  straight  in  among  the 
lot  of  them,  so  I  had  to  leave  the  guns  for  the 
moment  and  get  my  wagons  away.  I  then  rode 
forward  to  where  the  other  guns  of  my  battery 
were  in  action  and  found  that  they  had  escaped 
casualties,  so  arranged  to  bring  my  guns  in 
beside  them.  About  an  hour  and  a  half  after 
I  was  hit  I  went  to  an  advance  aid-post  to  have 


192  LIVING  BAYONETS 

my  head  dressed.  It  was  just  a  pile  of  stretchers 
and  bandages  in  a  ditch — the  living  under  cover 
in  the  ditch,  the  dead  lying  out  on  top  ;  here 
a  doctor  and  four  Red  Cross  orderlies  were  work- 
ing in  silence.  I  was  ordered  to  report  at  the 
next  post  back  for  an  anti-tetanus  injection,  so 
I  got  on  my  horse  and  rode.  At  the  next  post 
they  had  no  anti-tetanus,  so  I  was  put  on  a  lorry 
and  driven  back  to  Arras.  From  there  I  went 
to  the  Casualty  Clearing  Station,  where  I  was 
dressed  and  got  two  hours'  sleep — from  there 
I  travelled  on  the  Red  Cross  train  to  the  Base, 
arriving  at  6  a.m.,  only  eighteen  hours  from  the 
time  that  I  was  in  the  fighting.  The  hospital  I 
went  to  was  the  Number  20  General — the  same 
one  that  I  was  in  last  year.  That  same  morning 
I  was  X-rayed  and  starved  all  day  in  prepara- 
tion for  an  operation  which  did  not  happen.  In 
the  evening  I  was  warned  for  Blighty,  but  it  was 
the  midday  of  4th  September  before  I  got  on  the 
train  for  the  port  of  embarkation.  The  journey 
was  rather  long,  for  I  did  not  reach  Liverpool 
Street  till  two  in  the  morning.  Yesterday,  as 
soon  as  I  woke  up,  I  sent  you  a  cable.  In  the 
afternoon  Mr.  W.  came  to  see  me  and  is  coming 
again  to-day.  I  left  the  Front  without  a  bit  of 
kit,  so  my  first  S.O.S.  was  for  a  pair  of  pyjamas. 
Having  studied  the  colour  of  my  eyes  and 
consulted   with  his  lady-clerks,   W.   sent   me   a 


LIVING  BAYONETS  193 

suit  of  baby  blue  silk  ones  with  thin  white  stripes 
in  them — so  now  I  am  ready  to  receive  ladies. 

3  p.m.  I  was  X-rayed,  and  there  is  a  splinter 
between  the  scalp  and  skull.  WTiether  the  skull 
is  fractured  I  don't  know  ;  I  think  not,  however, 
as  I  feel  too  well.  What  a  contrast  lying  here 
in  the  quiet  after  so  many  night  marches,  so 
much  secrecy,  such  tiger  pounces  forward  in  the 
dawn,  such  agony  and  courage  and  death.  There 
were  wounded  men  hobbhng  seven  miles  from 
the  Drocourt-Queant  line  where  I  was  hit,  to 
the  hospital  at  Arras.  The  roads  were  packed 
with  transports — ammunition,  pontoons,  rations — 
streaming  forward,  gunners  and  infantry  march- 
ing up  to  the  carnage  with  eager  faces,  passing 
the  back-going  traffic  which  was  a  scarlet  tide  of 
blood.  It  was  worth  living  for — worth  doing — 
that  busting  of  the  Hindenburg  Line.  I  hope  to  be 
patched  up  in  two  months,  so  that  I  may  be  in  on 
the  final  rush  to  the  Rhine.  I've  only  been  out  of 
the  fighting  three  days  and  I  want  to  be  in  it  again. 

Don't  worry  about  me  at  all.  I'm  all  right  and 
brown  and  strong.  Thank  God  I'm  not  dead  yet 
and  shall  be  able  to  fight  again. 

Note. — Lieutenant     Coningsby     Dawson     was 

wounded  on  2nd  September  in  the  attack  on  the 

Queant-Drocoiirt  Line,  when  the  magnificent  fighting 

of  the  Canadians  broke  the  Hindenburg  Line.     The 

13 


194  LIVING  BAYONETS 

above  letter  describes  that  attack  and  the  manner 
in  which  he  got  his  wound. 


LXXVII 

London 
September  8,  1918 

I've  returned  from  this  offensive  with  a  very 
healthy  hatred  of  the  Hun.  One  of  our  tanks, 
commanded  by  a  boy  of  twenty,  got  too  far  ahead 
and  was  captured.  When  the  rest  of  the  attack- 
ing hne  caught  up,  they  found  him  stripped  naked 
and  bound  to  his  tank — dead.  The  brutes  had 
bombed  him  to  death  mother-naked.  When  I 
tell  you  that  no  prisoners  were  taken  for  the  next 
twenty-four  hours,  I  think  you'll  applaud  and 
wonder  why  the  twenty-four  hours  wasn't  ex- 
tended. The  men  said  they  got  sick  of  the  killing. 
Why  we're  decent  to  these  vermin  at  all  amazes 
me,  until  I  remember  that  I  also  am  decent  to 
them.  I  think  the  reason  is  that  originally  we 
set  out  to  be  good  sportsmen  and  are  ashamed  of 
being  forced  into  hatred.  All  the  way  down  the 
line  the  German  wounded  received  precisely  the 
same  treatment  as  our  own  men — and  treatment 
that  was  just  as  prompt.  At  the  Casualty  Clear- 
ing Station,  German  officers  sat  at  table  with 
us  and  no  difference  was  made.  On  the  Red 
Cross  train  they  were  given  beds  in  our  carriage 


LIVING  BAYONETS  195 

and  our  English  sisters  waited  on  them.  I 
thought  of  how  the  German  nurses  treat  our 
chaps,  spitting  into  the  food  and  the  cups  before 
they  hand  them  to  them.  Every  now  and  then 
you  would  see  a  wounded  Canadian  hop  up  the 
carriage  and  offer  them  cigarettes.  They  sat 
stiffly  and  insolently,  with  absurd  yellow  gloves 
on,  looking  as  though  every  kindness  shown  was 
a  national  tribute  to  their  superiority.  There 
were  so  many  of  us  that  at  night  two  had  to  lie 
on  beds  made  for  one.  The  Germans  refused  ; 
they  wanted  a  bod  apiece.  When  they  were 
told  they  would  have  to  sit  up  if  they  would  not 
share,  they  said  they  would  sit  up.  Then  the 
sister  came  along  to  investigate  the  disturbance. 
They  eyed  her  with  their  obstinate  pig-eyes,  as 
though  daring  her  to  touch  them.  She  told  them 
that  if  they  wanted  to  sit  up  all  night  they  would 
have  to  do  it  in  the  corridor,  as  they  prevented 
the  bed  above  them  from  being  pulled  down. 
At  the  end  of  fifteen  minutes  they  decided  to 
share  a  bed  as  all  of  us  had  been  doing,  but  they 
muttered  and  grumbled  all  night.  There  were 
a  good  many  of  us  who  wished  for  a  Mills  bomb 
and  an  open  field  in  which  to  teach  them  manners. 
It  seems  to  rae  that  the  German  is  incorrigible. 
He  was  born  a  boor  and  he  can  never  respond 
to  courtesy.  Kindness  and  mercy  are  lost  upon 
him  ;    he  accepts  them  as  his  right  and  becomes 


196  LIVING  BAYONETS 

domineering.  If  any  peacemaker  thinks  that 
Christian  forbearance  and  magnanimity  will 
make  for  a  new  brotherhood  when  peace  terms 
are  formulated,  he  is  vastly  mistaken.  The 
German  is  a  bully,  and  the  only  leadership  that 
he  acknowledges  and  the  only  righteousness  to 
which  he  bows,  is  the  leadership  and  the  armed 
force  of  a  bully  stronger  than  himself.  Senti- 
mental leniency  on  the  part  of  the  Allies  will 
only  make  him  swell  out  his  chest  afresh. 

You  may  have  seen  the  account  of  a  booby- 
trap  which  the  Huns  left  behind — a  crucified 
kitten.  They  banked  on  the  humanity  of  our 
chaps  to  release  the  little  beast ;  but  the  moment 
the  first  nail  was  drawn  it  exploded  a  mine 
which  killed  our  Tommies,  In  contrast  to  this 
is  an  incident  which  occurred  the  night  before 
our  attack  on  the  Hindenburg  Line,  A  hare, 
frightened  by  shell-fire,  came  panting  through 
our  gun-position.  Some  of  the  fellows  gave 
chase,  till  at  last  one  fell  on  it  and  caught  it. 
It  started  to  cry  like  a  baby  in  a  heartrending 
sort  of  way.  We  hadn't  liad  very  much  meat, 
and  the  intention  in  catching  it  had  been  to  put 
it  in  the  pot ;  but  there  was  no  one  who  could 
face  up  to  killing  it — so  it  was  petted  and  set 
free  again  in  the  wheat.  Queer  tender-hearted- 
ness on  the  part  of  men  who  next  morning  were 
going  to  kill  their  kind  !     Their  concern  when  the 


LIVING  BAYONETS  197 

little  beast  began  to  sob  was  conscience-stricken 
and  ludicrous. 

LXXVIII 

London 
September  12,  1918 

I've  a  great  piece  of  news  for  you.  It's  exceed- 
ingl}^  likely  that  I  shall  visit  the  States  on  the 
British  Mission.  This  must  read  to  you  like 
moonshine — but  it's  a  quite  plausible  fact.  I 
shall  not  be  allowed  to  go  back  to  the  Front  for 
three  months,  as  it  will  probably  be  that  time 
before  I  am  pronounced  fit  for  active  service. 
It  is  suggested  that  during  that  time  I  come  to 
the  States  to  speak  on  Anglo-American  relations. 
I  feel  very  loath  to  postpone  my  return  to  the 
Front  by  a  single  day,  and  would  only  do  so  if 
I  were  quite  sure  that  I  should  not  be  fit  for 
active  service  again  before  the  winter  settles 
down,  when  the  attack  will  end.  T  don't  want 
to  miss  an  hour  of  the  great  offensive.  If  I  agree 
to  come  to  the  States,  I  shall  only  do  it  on  the 
pledge  that  I  am  sent  straight  back  to  France 
on  my  return.  This  would  give  me  a  right  to 
speak  to  Americans  as  nothing  else  would.  I 
could  not  speak  of  the  war  unless  I  was  return 
ing  to  it.  I  owe  the  Lord  a  death  for  every 
life  of  my  men's  that  has  been  taken — and  I 
want  to  get  back  to  where  I  can  pay  the  debt. 
I3nt  wouldn't  it  be  ripping  to  have  a  few  weeks 


igS  LIVING  BAYONETS 

all  together  again  ?  Can't  I  picture  myself  in 
my  little  study  at  the  top  of  the  house  and  in 
my  old  bedroom  !  I  may  even  manage  a  Christ- 
mas with  you  ! 

Having  had  my  wound  dressed  and  having 
togged  myself  up  in  my  new  uniform,  I  jumped 
into  the  inevitable  taxi  and  went  to  lunch  at 
the  Ritz  with  some  of  the  visiting  American 
editors.  It  was  delightfully  refreshing  to  listen 
to  Charlie  Towne's,  the  editor  of  McClure's,  wild 
enthusiasm  for  the  courageous  high  spirits  of 
England.  "  The  streets  are  dark  at  night,"  he 
said,  "  but  in  the  people's  hearts  there  is  more  light 
than  ever."  Two  stories  were  told,  illuminat- 
ingly  true,  of  the  way  in  which  the  average 
Englishman  carries  on.  There  was  an  officer  who 
had  had  an  eye  shot  out  ;  the  cavity  was  filled 
with  an  artificial  one.  Towne  felt  a  profound 
pity  for  him,  but  at  the  same  time  he  was  rather 
surprised  to  see  that  the  chap  wore  a  monocle  in 
the  eye  that  was  sightless.  At  last  he  plucked  up 
courage  to  ask  him  what  was  the  object  of  the 
monocle.  The  chap  smiled  drolly.  "  I  do  it  for  a 
rag,"  he  said  ;   "it  makes  me  look  more  funny." 

A  Canadian  Tommy,  without  any  legs,  was 
being  wheeled  down  a  station  platform.  Another 
wounded  Tommy  called  out  to  him,  "  You're 
not  on  the  staff,  Bill.  Why  don't  yer  get  out 
and  walk  ? 


LIVING  BAYONETS  199 

"  'Cause  I'm  as  good  as  a  dook  now,"  the  chap 
replied  ;  ''for  the  rest  of  me  life  I'm  a  kerridge 
gent." 

The  thing  that  seems  to  have  impressed  these 
American  visitors  most  of  all  is  the  way  in  which 
our  soldiers  make  adversity  appear  comic  by 
their  triumphant  capacity  for  mockery. 

TovMie,  being  a  lover  of  poetry,  was  terrifically 
keen  to  visit  Goldsmith's  grave.  I  hadn't  the 
foggiest  idea  where  it  was,  but  after  lunch  we 
set  out  in  search  of  it.  At  last  we  found  it  in 
a  shady  backwater  of  the  Inner  Temple — a 
simple  slab  on  which  the  only  inscription  was 
the  name,  "Oliver  Goldsmith."  I  know  of  only 
one  parallel  to  this  for  illustrious  brevity  ;  a 
gravestone  in  Paris,  from  which  even  the  Chris- 
tian name  is  omitted  and  on  which  the  solitary 
word  "  Heine  "  is  written.  I  liked  to  see  the 
poet  from  Broadway  bare  his  head  as  he  stood 
by  the  long-dead  English  poet's  grave.  Behind 
us  in  the  Temple  chapel  the  confident  soprano 
of  boys'  voices  soared.  It  was  a  grey-blue  day, 
made  tawny  for  brave  moments  by  fugitive  stabs 
of  sunshine.  Lime  trees  daj^pled  the  cold  court- 
yard with  shadows  ;  leaves  drifted  down  like 
gilded  largesse.  Old  men,  with  dimming  eyes 
and  stooped  backs,  shulTled  from  stairway  to 
stairway,  carrying  heavy  ledgers.  The  rumble 
of  Fleet  Street  reached  us  comfortingly,  like  the 


200  LIVING  BAYONETS 

sound  of  distant  surf  on  an  unseen  shore.  My 
thoughts  wrenched  themselves  free  from  the 
scenes  of  blood  and  struggle  in  which  I  partici- 
pated less  than  two  weeks  ago.  Here,  in  that 
simple  inscription,  was  the  symbol  of  the  one 
quality  which  survives  Time's  erasures — char- 
acter which  loved  and  won  love  intensely. 

Queer  letters  you  get  from  me  !  I  write  the 
way  I  feel  from  London  or  the  battlefield.  My 
room-mate  is  lying  in  bed,  his  poor  shattered  leg 
propped  up  on  a  pillow  and  a  cheery  smile  about 
his  lips.  In  the  well  of  the  hospital  someone  is 
playing  —  playing  love-songs  as  though  there 
were  no  war.  The  music,  muted  by  distance, 
drifts  in  to  me  through  the  open  window.  I  feel 
that  life  is  mine  again  ;  I  can  hope.  At  the 
Front  to  hope  too  much  was  to  court  disappoint- 
ment.    To  be  alive  is  thrilling  and  delicious. 

LXXIX 

London 
October  6,  1918 

It  is  vSunday  morning.  As  I  write  the  newsboys 
in  the  Strand  are  calling  an  extra-special.  Before 
entering  the  Savoy  for  lunch  I  purchased  a  copy, 
which  I  read  as  I  sat  in  the  great  gold  and  crimson 
lounge  while  I  waited  for  a  table.  You  know 
what  the  Savoy  is  like,  crowded  with  actresses, 
would-be-taken-for   actresses,    officers   on   leave, 


LIVING  BAYONETS  201 

chaps  hobbling  out  of  hospitals  like  myself,  and 
a  sprinkling  of  Jews  with  huge  noses  and  a  mag- 
nificent disregard  for  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
in  khaki.  The  orchestra  was  being  kept  up  to 
the  right  pitch  of  frenzy  in  their  efforts  by  a 
gentleman  who  is  reported  to  get  in  more  extra 
beats  to  the  minute  than  any  other  person  of  his 
colour  in  London.  The  feet  of  the  girls  trijipcd 
into  an  unconscious  one-step  as  they  entered,  as 
though  they  acted  independently  of  their  owners. 
At  the  end  of  the  rather  pompous  hall,  with  its 
false  air  of  being  too  respectable  for  naughtiness, 
lay  the  terrace  and  beyond  that  the  Thames, 
benevolent  and  drowsy  in  the  October  sunshine. 
Everything  was  gay  and  normal  as  though 
nothing  except  the  war  had  happened  or  would 
ever  happen.  I  should  like  Berlin  to  have  seen 
us — Berlin  which  waited  breathless  for  the 
detonation  of  the  latest  Big  Bertha  which  she 
had  fired  on  the  world. 

I  opened  my  paper.  Across  the  top  of  it,  in 
one-inch  type  headlines,  ran  the  message  : 

GERMANY  PLEADS  FOR  PEACE 

I  am  sorry  to  have  to  disappoint  Germany, 
but  the  truth  is  I  didn't  blink  an  eyelid  or  turn 
a  hair.  I  was  scarcely  mildly  interested.  I 
gazed  round  the  crowd  ;  their  eyelids  had  not 
blinked    and    their   hair   had    not   turned.     The 


202  LIVING  BAYONETS 

Kaiser's  Big  Bertha  of  peace  had  not  roused  them  ; 
she  must  have  fired  a  dud.  Everyone  looked 
quite  contented  and  animated,  as  if  the  war  was 
going  to  last  for  ever. 

My  eye  slipped  down  the  two  columns  of  close 
printing  in  which  the  mercy  of  the  All  Highest 
was  revealed  to  the  world.     I  learnt  that  the  All 
Highest's  new  Imperial  Chancellor  was  celebrat- 
ing his  new  office  by  playing  a  little  trick  on  his 
own    credulity ;     he    was    pretending    that    by 
Christmas  Germany  would  have  sponged  out  all 
her  debts  of  infamy  with  words.     Prince  Max  of 
Baden  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  bring  good-will 
upon   earth   that   he   had   cabled   to    President 
Wilson  proposals  for  a  lasting  peace  ;  he  had  gone 
to  this  trouble  and  expense  not  because  of  any- 
thing that  was  happening  on  the  Western  Front, 
but  solely  "  in  the  interests  of  suffering  humanity." 
Glancing  at  a  parallel  column  I  read  words  which 
would  have  led  me  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  any 
one  less  august  :    "  Germans  Defeated  in  All-day 
Battle.     Tanks  do  Great  Execution  among  Hun 
Infantry.     looo  Prisoners  Taken." 

Then  I  turned  back  to  see  what  this  spokesman 
of  a  nation  of  humanitarians  had  to  say  for  him- 
self. I  learnt  that  Germany  had  always  been 
keen  on  the  League  of  Nations  :  that  she  was 
anxious,  as  she  had  always  been  anxious,  to  re- 
habihtate  Belgium  ;    that  her  armies  were  still 


LIVING  BAYONETS  203 

inxnncible,  and  that  the  Western  Front  was  still 
unbroken  ;  that  the  Kaiser  was  God's  latest 
revelation  of  His  own  perfection  and  His  mag- 
nanimous shadow  upon  earth. 

Liars  !  Blasphemous  liars  !  How  can  one  treat 
with  a  nation  which  has  not  even  the  sense  to 
make  its  shamming  decent  and  plausible  ?  On 
the  Western  Front  to-day  in  their  ignominious 
retreat  the  Germans  are  showing  their  ancient 
ferocity  for  destruction.  I  know,  for  I  have  just 
come  from  before  Cambrai.  Cities  are  being 
levelled  before  they  make  their  exit ;  civilian 
populations  are  being  carried  away  captive ; 
trains  piled  high  with  loot  precede  their  departure ; 
they  leave  behind  them  the  desolation  of  death. 
While  with  "  incomparable  heroism  "  their  armies 
are  executing  these  brutalities,  their  Chancellor 
recalls  us  to  a  lost  humanity  and  presupposes  that 
we  shall  accept  his  professions  at  their  face  value. 

I  looked  up  from  my  paper  at  the  Sunday 
crowd,  chatting  gaily  as  it  passed  through  gaudy 
splendours  into  lunch.  They  were  amazingly 
unmoved  by  anything  that  the  German  Chancellor 
had  said.  So  far  as  their  attitude  betrayed  them, 
he  might  never  have  become  Chancellor.  If  I 
may  state  the  case  colloquially,  they  didn't  care 
a  damn.  There  were  American  officers  newly 
landed,  men  with  the  Mons  ribbon,  who  had  been 
in   the  game   from   the  crack   of   the   first  gun, 


204  LIVING  BAYONETS 

wounded  Johnnies  like  myself,  wearing  the  blue 
armlet  which  denotes  that  you  are  still  in  hospital. 
One  and  all  were  seizing  this  jolly  moment  be- 
fore they  again  caught  sight  of  the  trenches 
and  carried  on  with  pounding  the  Hun.  They 
weren't  going  to  spoil  their  leisure  by  discussing 
the  perturbations  of  a  German  Chancellor. 

Peace  !  For  the  Hun  there  shall  be  no  peace. 
For  him,  for  the  next  hundred  years,  whether 
we  fight  him  or  guard  the  wall  which  we  shall 
build  about  him,  there  will  be  no  peace.  We, 
who  have  seen  the  mud  of  France  grow  red  with 
blood  as  if  with  poppy  petals,  will  never  forget. 
That  we  die  is  nothing,  provided  always  that  two 
German  lives  pay  for  our  death.  Beyond  the 
Rhine,  Germany  lies  intact  ;  her  towns  are  still 
snug  and  smiling.  One  journeys  to  them  through 
a  hundred  miles  of  rotting  corpses — the  corpses 
of  men  who  were  our  friends  ;  yet  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  appeals  to  our  humanity  and  reminds 
us  of  mercy. 

Mercy  !  While  I  have  been  in  hospital  several 
batches  of  returned  British  prisoners  have  arrived. 
I  have  sat  at  table  with  them,  seen  their  neglected 
wounds,  and  talked  to  them.  One  officer,  in 
addition  to  his  battlefield  wound,  has  a  face 
horribly  disfigured.  I  scarcely  know  how  to 
describe  it.  His  jaw  has  been  broken  ;  his  entire 
face  has  been  pushed  to  one  side.     It  was  done  by 


LIVING  BAYONETS  205 

the  butt  of  a  Hun  rifle  in  a  prison  hospital  in 
Germany  ;  an  orderly  woke  him  up  by  smashing 
his  face  in  one  morning  as  he  lay  in  bed.  You 
may  say  that  this  was  the  act  of  one  man  and 
cannot  justly  be  taken  as  representative  of  a 
nation.  The  time  has  long  gone  by  for  such 
generous  discriminations  ;  in  four  years  of  war- 
fare these  ferocious  cruelties  have  been  too 
frequent  and  organized  for  their  odium  to  be 
borne  by  individual  men.  WTien  Germany 
speaks  of  mercy  it  is  as  though  a  condemned 
murderer  on  the  scaffold  appealed  for  his  re- 
prieve on  the  grounds  of  Christ's  commandment, 
"  Love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  Bullies  grow 
fluent  at  quoting  scripture  only  when  they  feel 
the  rope  about  their  necks  ;  their  use  of  scripture 
phrases  at  the  eleventh  hour  is  proof  of  cowardice 
— not  of  repentance. 

Judas,  the  front-rank  assassin  of  all  times,  set 
an  example  in  decency  which  it  would  behove 
Germany  to  follow,  when  he  went  out  into  the 
garden  and  hanged  himself. 

There  will  be  sentimentalists  among  the  Allies 
who  will  speak  of  forgiveness  and  softer  judg- 
ments. Their  motives  will  be  mixed  and  many  : 
some  will  be  camouflaged  pacifists  ;  some  will 
be  influenced  by  personal  advantages,  such  as 
relations,  business  affiliations  and  financial  in- 
vestments in  Germany  ;    some  will  be  war-weary 


2o6  LIVING  BAYONETS 

mothers  and  wives  who  will  pounce  on  the  first 
opportunity  of  regaining  their  remaining  men. 
None  of  them  will  be  the  men  who  have  done 
the  fighting.  Germany  has  turned  to  the  Ameri- 
can President  as  the  intercessor  for  Peace  ;  the 
men  at  the  Front  look  to  America  to  back  them 
up  in  exacting  the  final  penalty — they  look  to 
America  above  all  the  other  AlHes  for  firmness 
for  the  reason  that  she  is  not  war-weary,  and 
because  milHons  of  her  men  who  are  in  khaki 
have  yet  to  prove  their  manhood  to  themselves. 
America  beyond  all  Germany's  adversaries  came 
into  the  war  on  indisputably  righteous  grounds  : 
we  look  to  her  to  insist  on  a  meticulously  righteous 
settlement.  In  the  face  of  the  enormities  which 
have  been  perpetrated  by  the  Hun  armies  from 
the  first  violation  of  Belgium's  neutrahty  up  to 
now,  no  vengeance  could  be  made  adequate. 
The  entire  history  of  Germany's  method  of 
making  war  is  one  of  an  increasing  ingenuity  in 
devising  new  methods  of  making  nations  suffer 
while  withholding  the  release  of  death.  The 
ravishing  of  women,  the  shooting  of  old  men, 
the  sending  of  the  girlhood  of  occupied  territories 
into  the  shame  of  unwilling  prostitution,  the 
wholesale  destruction  of  all  virtues  that  make 
hfe  decent  and  desirable  cannot  be  exacted  as 
part  of  our  penalty  ;  but  the  extermination  of  the 
arch-culprits  who    have    educated    their  human 


LIVING  BAYONETS  207 

instruments  out  of  manhood  into  bestiality  can. 
If  the  Kaiser  and  the  herd  of  human  minotaurs 
who  surround  him  escape  the  gallows,  justice 
becomes  a  travesty  and  there  is  no  murderer, 
however  diabolical  his  atrocities,  who  deserves 
to  be  electrocuted. 

With  the  turning  of  the  tide  in  the  Allies' 
favour  the  voice  of  France  is  already  making  itself 
heard  on  the  side  of  the  argument  for  vengeance. 
WTioever  forgets,  France  has  her  landscapes 
billowed  into  mire  by  shells,  her  gallant  cities 
converted  into  monstrous  blots  of  brick  and  dirt, 
always  to  remind  her.  She  is  demanding  that 
for  every  French  city  laid  low,  a  German  city, 
when  the  day  of  settlement  comes,  shall  suffer 
an  equal  nemesis.  For  these  crimes  against 
civilian  rights  and  properties,  Germany  has  no 
martial  motive.  They  are  wanton  and  carried 
out  by  organized  incendiaries  among  her  re- 
treating armies,  having  no  provocation  of  battle 
to  excuse  them.  Moreover,  as  Dr.  Hugh  Bellot, 
the  eminent  International  lawyer,  has  pointed 
out,  Germany  has  condemned  herself  out  of  her 
own  mouth.  In  her  treatment,  for  instance,  of 
such  a  city  as  St.  Quentin,  she  commits  three 
separate  crimes  against  International  law.  First, 
against  the  person  of  the  civihan  ;  second,  against 
the  rights  of  movable  property ;  third,  against 
the   rights  of  public  and  private  property.     In 


2o8  LIVING  BAYONETS 

her  own  military  manual,  known  as  the  German 
War  Book,  and  regarded  as  her  official  guide 
for  military  conduct  until  this  present  war,  she 
lays  down  that  "  the  devastation  of  occupied 
territory,  destruction  of  property,  carrying  away 
of  inhabitants  into  bondage  or  captivity,  and  the 
right  of  plundering  private  property,  formerly 
permitted,  can  no  longer  be  entertained.  The 
inhabitants  are  no  longer  to  be  regarded,  generally 
speaking,  as  enemies,  and  are  not  to  be  molested 
in  life,  limb,  honour  or  freedom."  Furthermore 
it  states  that  "  every  insult,  every  disturbance 
against  the  domestic  peace,  every  attack  on  family 
honour  and  morahty,  every  unlawful  and  out- 
rageous attack  or  act  of  violence,  are  just  as 
strictly  punishable  as  though  they  had  been 
committed  against  the  inhabitants  of  one's  own 
land,"  There  is  not  a  single  one  of  the  above 
rulings  that  Germany  is  not  violating  at  this 
moment  in  her  enforced  withdrawal  from  France  ; 
and  it  is  at  this  time  that  her  Chancellor  appeals 
for  peace  in  "  the  interests  of  suffering  humanity." 
Magnanimity !  It  is  a  fine,  large-sounding 
word  and  one  which  it  would  be  a  disgrace  to  lose 
from  our  vocabulary  ;  yet  it  is  a  word  capable  of 
much  abuse  if  employed  in  our  peace  deahngs 
with  the  enemy.  The  day  for  magnanimity  has 
long  gone  by  ;  in  being  magnanimous  we  are 
unjust  to  both  our  future  generations  and  our 


LIVING  BAYONETS  209 

valiant  dead.  There  are  deeds  of  such  vileness 
and  treachery  that  they  put  nations,  equally 
with  individuals,  outside  the  pale  of  all  possible 
magnanimity.  For  four  years  Germany  has 
figured  in  history  as  a  self -applauded  assassin. 
VVliile  the  role  seemed  to  pay  her,  she  gloried  in 
her  ruthlessness.  She  succeeded  too  well  both 
on  sea  and  land  ever  to  persuade  us  that  defeat 
has  made  her  heart  more  tender.  The  only 
peace  terms  will  be  a  carefully  audited  reckoning 
of  all  the  happiness  and  innocence  that  she  has 
strangled.  That  this  may  be  accomplished  the 
man  at  the  Front  is  willing  to  go  on  risking  life 
and  sanity  for  twice  four  years,  if  need  be  :  in 
the  certainty  that  it  will  be  accomplished,  he  will 
die  without  regret. 

We  British  and  men  of  the  Dominions  did  not 
always  feel  this  way.  When  we  entered  the  war 
we  determined  to  remain  gentlemen  whatever 
happened.  We  weren't  going  to  be  vulgar  and 
lose  our  tempers  ;  we  weren't  going  to  be  un- 
sportsmanly  and  learn  to  hate.  Though  dirty 
tricks  were  played  on  us,  we  would  still  play 
fair.  Our  code  of  honour  demanded  it.  There 
should  be  no  retaliation.  Then  came  the  Germans' 
employment  of  gas,  his  flame  attacks,  his  sub- 
marining of  merchantmen,  his  bombing  of  hos- 
pitals and  civilian  towns.  You  can't  play  fair 
with  an  enemy  who  flies  the  flag  of  truce  that  he 
14 


210  LIVING  BAYONETS 

may  shoot  you  in  the  back.  Tit  for  tat  was  the 
only  code  of  honour  which  came  within  the  com- 
prehension of  such  a  ruffian.  It  took  three  years 
for  us  to  stoop  to  the  bombing  of  the  Rhine 
towns.  The  wisdom  of  the  step  has  been  proved  ; 
the  children  of  London  now  sleep  safely  in  their 
beds.  In  my  opinion,  at  least  in  as  far  as  the 
British  armies  are  concerned,  the  success  of  the 
present  offensive  has  just  one  meaning  :  after 
four  years  of  gallant  smiling  our  soldiers  have 
attained  a  righteous  anger — a  determination  to 
exact  a  just  revenge.  They  no  longer  make 
lenient  discriminations  between  Germany  and 
her  rulers.  They  know  now  that  the  breath  of 
every  individual  German  is  tainted  with  the 
odour  of  carnage.  What  makes  our  anger  more 
bitter  is  the  shame  that  Germany  should  have 
forced  us  to  stoop  to  hatred  as  a  weapon.  But 
there  is  only  one  safe  principle  upon  which  to 
act  in  dealing  with  Germany,  whether  in  fighting 
her  or  making  peace  with  her  :  With  whatever 
measure  she  metes,  it  should  be  measured  to  her 
again.  Brute  force  is  the  only  reasoning  she 
understands. 

The  Imperial  Chancellor  has  appealed  for  peace 
"in  the  interest  of  suffering  humanity."  Even 
in  his  cry  for  mercy  he  speaks  vaingloriously, 
boasting  of  the  "  incomparable  heroism  "  of  his 
mob  of  brutes  who  have  made  humanity  suffer. 


LIVING  BAYONETS  211 

In  not  one  line  of  liis  appeal  is  there  a  hint  of 
polite  regret.  By  the  time  you  read  this  letter, 
this  particular  peace  overture  will  be  ancient 
history,  but  there  will  be  many  more  of  them, 
each  one  more  sentimental  and  frantic  as  our 
armies  batter  their  way  nearer  to  Germany's 
complacent  smiHng  toNvus.  As  these  peace  over- 
tures arrive,  as  they  w^ll  almost  daily,  there  is  a 
saying  of  Richard  Hooker's  which  I  wish  every 
American  would  repeat  night  and  morning  as  a 
vow  and  prayer.  It  is  a  saying  which  was  in  my 
mind  on  the  dawn  of  8th  August,  when  we 
sailed  out  into  the  morning  mist  on  the  great 
Amiens  attack.  It  is  a  saying  which  was  un- 
consciously in  the  mind  of  every  British  soldier  ; 
its  stern  righteousness  exi)lains  our  altered  at- 
titude and  the  Cromwellian  strength  with  which 
we  strike.  "  Lord,  I  owe  thee  a  death,"  said 
Richard  Hooker.  Whether  we  be  soldiers  or 
civilians,  we  each  one  owe  the  Lord  a  Hun  death 
for  the  accumulated  horror  that  has  taken  place. 
Such  blasphemies  against  God's  handiwork  can- 
not be  wiped  out  with  words.  To  make  peace 
before  the  Hun  has  paid  his  righteous  debt,  is 
to  shorten  God's  right  arm  and  to  make  sacrifice 
seem  trivial.  We  are  not  fighting  to  crush  in- 
dividuals or  nations,  but  against  a  strongly 
fortified  vileness  and  to  prove  that  righteousness 
still    triumphs    in    the    world.     If    at    the    first 


212  LIVING  BAYONETS 

whimpering  our  hearts  are  touched  and  we  allow 
the  evil  to  escape  its  punishment,  it  will  sneak 
off  with  a  cunning  leer  about  its  mouth  to  lick 
its  wounds  into  health  that  it  may  take  a  future 
generation  unawares.  Mercy  at  this  juncture 
would  be  spiritual  slovenliness.  God  has  given 
the  Allies  a  task  to  accomplish  ;  He  has  made  us 
His  avengers  that,  when  our  work  is  ended,  He 
may  create  a  new  heaven  upon  earth. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


KHAKI    COURAGE 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

W.    J.    DAWSON 

Crown  8uo,  3s,  6d.  net.     Second  Edition 

Khaki  Courage  is  that  unexpected  heroism  which  people 
develop  within  themselves  when  their  men  have  marched 
into  the  battle  smoke. 

100,000  Copies  sold  in  the  United  States. 

"  Brought  face  to  face  with  the  horrors  of  the  battle- 
field Mr.  Dawson  was  seized  with  a  sort  of  exaltation  of 
mind.  Death  had  lost  its  sting.  .  .  .  All  things  were  now- 
new  to  him. 

"Truly  this  is  a  strange  state  of  mind— a  stale  incredible 
a  few  years  ago.  The  words  startle  and  repel  us.  .  .  . 
The  brave  pretence  of  finding  matter  for  amusement  in 
'  the  endless  sequence  of  physical  discomfort '  has  some- 
thing in  it  of  the  sublime. 

"  His  mental  attitude  is  not  in  the  slightest  degree  to 
be  accounted  for  by  hate.  He  knows  that  his  cause  is 
just  ;  he  believes  firmly  that  it  is  the  cause  of  freedom.  .  .  . 
It  is  not,  as  we  read  the  book,  the  spirit  of  enmity  or  the 
spirit  of  devotion  to  a  cause  by  whicli  he  is  possessed  ; 
it  is  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  the  spirit  of  the  martyr,  a  well- 
nigh  forgotten  spirit. 

"A  story  of  spiritual  adventure  The  Grail  is  courage 
rather  than  victory,  and  to  find  it  is  the  true  war  aim.  We 
do  not  say  this  is  what  the  writer  intended  to  teach,  but,  for 
all  that,  his  letters  have  no  other  message.  He  believes 
himself  typical  of  his  brethren.  If  so,  we  are  in  presence  of 
a  new  factor  in  human  society." — Spectator. 

J(^HX  LANK,  The  Bodley  Head,  V^igo  Street,  W.  i 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


KHAKI    COURAGE 

WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION   BY 

W.    J.    DAWSON 

Crown  8vo,  3s.  6d.  net.     Second  Edition 

100,000  Copies  sold  in  the  United  States. 

"  John  Lane  has  done  one  of  the  big  things  of  his  hfe  in 
publishing  '  Khaki  Courage.'  One  puts  the  book  down 
with  a  feeUng  of  reverence  and  of  envy  that  we,  his  readers, 
are  not  permitted  to  share  the  soldier's  disregard  for 
death." — Sunday  Herald. 

"  We  see  not  only  what  the  author  thinks,  but  also  what 
he  feels  about  the  horrors  of  an  experience  which  must  for 
ever  remain  inconceivable  to  the  non-combatant.  There 
are  many  other  interesting  and  instructive  points  in  Con- 
ingsby  Dawson's  cheery  and  never  too  reticent  letters." 

Morning  Post. 

"  These  letters  breathe  a  quiet  but  sturdy  spirit." 

Sunday  Times. 

"  These  letters  are  those  of  a  serious,  full-hearted  young 
man  and  endowed  with  a  natural  gift  for  writing.  This  may 
be  read  for  the  inspiration  of  a  single-hearted  courage." 

Tif/tes. 

"  Few  of  the  letters  written  home  by  soldiers  give  a  more 
interesting  and  inspiriting  reflection  of  the  brave  spirit  that 
animates  our  armies.  They  are  admirable  for  the  high 
courage  with  which  they  unconsciously  reveal  what  it  is  that 
makes  the  glory  of  war — the  inner  life  of  the  soldier." 

Scotsman. 

"  No  Englishman  could  read  it  without  being  inspired  by 
its  humility  and  noble  spirit." — New  Witness. 

JOHN  LANE,  The  Bodley  Head,  Vigo  Street,  W.  i. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


THE   GLORY  OF 
THE  TRENCHES 

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Behind  the  Hnes  in  France  is  a  ruined  cathedral  in  a 
ruined  village.  But  the  cathedral  altar  is  untouched, 
and  every  Sunday  morning  the  altar  lamp  is  lighted, 
the  Host  uplifted,  the  blessing  of  God  invoked.  And 
every  Sunday  morning  the  cathedral  is  shelled,  and  the 
altar  remains  untouched.  "  One  finds  in  this  a  symbol 
— that  in  the  heart  of  the  maelstrom  of  horror  which 
this  war  has  created  there  is  a  quiet  place  where  the 
lamp  of  gentleness  and  honour  is  kept  burning.  .  .  . 
From  the  polluted  trenches  of  Vimy  the  poppies  spring 
up,  blazoning  abroad  in  vivid  scarlet  our  lads'  willing 
sacrifice.  All  last  April,  high  above  the  shouting  of 
our  guns,  the  larks  sang  joyously.  The  scarlet  of  the 
poppies,  the  song  of  the  larks,  the  lamp  shining  on 
the  altar,  are  only  external  signs  of  the  unconquerable, 
happy  religion  which  lies  hidden  in  the  hearts  of  our 
men.  Their  religion  is  the  religion  of  heroism,  which 
ihey  have  learned  in  the  glory  of  the  trenches."  What 
that  glory  is,  how  it  lays  hold  of  every  true  man, 
what  it  really  means  to  be  at  the  front  in  this  greatest 
war  of  all  the  ages,  is  all  vividly  told  by  Lieutenant 
Coningsby  Dawson,  who  had  his  baptism  of  fire  at 
the  Somme,  was  wounded  at  Vimy,  and  again  later  in 
the  last  push. 

JOHN  LANH,   Tin-  I5..i>m;v  Ufai.,  Vk.o  Stkkim,  W.  i. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


THE  GLORY  OF 
THE   TRENCHES 

Crown  8uo,  3s.  6d.  net 

"  Coningsby  Dawson,  one  of  the  best  writers  of  the  war, 
interprets  with  power  and  sympathy  the  spirit  of  the  soldier. 
He  is  a  keen  observer  and  a  clever  writer." — Dai/y  Chronicle. 

"  It  is  good  to  get  another  of  Coningsby  Dawson's  cheery 
and  never  too  reticent  pictures  of  the  mentality  of  the  fighting 
men.  .  .  .  Here  is  a  book  of  powerful  sincerity  and  straight- 
forward— the  clear-sighted  impressions  of  an  Englishman 
who  has  shuffled  off  that  coil  of  conventional  habits  of 
thought  which  is  known  as  English  reserve  and  prevents  so 
many  of  us  from  doing  justice  to  our  compatriots." 

Mornhtg  Post. 

"  We  welcome  the  insight  and  the  sympathy  with  which 
Coningsby  Dawson  sets  before  us  throughout  the  'glory.' 
Well  worth  reading— written  with  much  ease  and  fluency." 

Times. 

"  Well  written,  instinct  with  true  piety,  fine  observation, 
and  sympathy." — Saturday  Review. 

"  Picturesquely  and  sympathetically  written." — Athenaum. 

"  Mr.  Dawson's  description  of  life  in  France  is  vivid,  as 
might  be  expected  from  so  skilful  a  hand." — Country  Life. 

"  The  most  inspiring  book  about  the  war  that  I  have  yet 
read." — Truth. 

"Mr.  Dawson  writes  with  a  pleasant  fluent  style,  and 
with  rare  gifts  of  sincerity  and  sympathy  The  work  has  a 
tonic  and  bracing  quality,  and  an  outlook  on  life  well  worthy 
of  consideration."— C«//(?<?/^'. 

"  Written  with  such  intimacy  of  knowledge  and  depth  of 
understanding." — Fall  Mall  Gazette. 


JOHN  LANE,  The  Bodley  Head,  Vigo  Street,  W.  i. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


OUT   TO  WIN 

Crown  8vo,  Ss.  6d.  net 

Under  the  British  Foreign  Office  and  as  the 
guest  of  the  U.S.A.  MiHtary  Authorities,  Lieu- 
tenant Coningsby  Dawson  was  sent  to  France 
to  make  a  study  of  what  is  being  planned  and 
accomplished  by  the  American  Army.  He  was 
given  the  fullest  facilities;  his  conclusions  are 
embodied  in  the  title. 

There  have  been  a  good  many  questions  as 
to  what  difference  America's  participation  woukl 
make  in  the  war  and  how  soon  her  weight 
would  begin  to  tell.  This  book,  which  a  com- 
britant  officer  was  drawn  out  of  the  line  especially 
to  write  on  account  of  his  grasp  of  American 
affairs,  gives  an  answer  to  all  such  questions. 
It  is  a  vivid,  prophetic,  optimistic  statement  of 
America's  programme  in  France.  Its  brilliant 
judgments  are  authoritative  and  based  on  observed 
facts  to  which  no  other  writer  has  as  )-et  hud 
access. 

J(J11N  LANK,  Tni-:  H<.i>lf.v  Hi-ad,  \'i<;.)  .Stkekt,  VV.  i. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR 


OUT  TO  WIN 

Crown  8vo,  Ss.  6d.  net 

"An  impressive  record." — Wesifninsier  Gazette. 

"  A  timely  and  enthusiastically  written  book." — Times. 

"  A  fervent  description  of  the  work  of  America  in 
France." — Globe. 

"A  stimulating  and  informative  volume." — Evening  News. 

"  Another  strong  volume  from  the  pen  of  Coningsby 
Dawson,  who  tells  from  first-hand  knowledge  the  great 
story  of  America  in  France." — Daily  Graphic. 

"  A  vigorous,  well-informed,  and  broad-minded  statement 
of  the  work  done  and  projected  by  the  Americans." 

Manchester  Guardian. 

"  A  book  that  deserves  to  be  read." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  Mr.  Dawson  is  a  writer  with  a  vivid  power  of  description 
and  an  emotional  range  which  reaches  the  heart.  He  tells 
in  emphatic  and  vivid  phrases  what  the  American  soldiers 
did  in  France." — Scotsman. 

"  It  is  a  wonderful  record  of  skilful  organisation  and  a 
rapid  grasp  of  realities." — Guardian. 

"This  book  is  written,  not  only  with  such  knowledge  of 
America  and  the  Americans,  but  with  such  sincerity  and 
faith  that  it  is  convincing  and  heartening  to  read  its  eloquent 
pages." — Glasgow  Herald. 

"  A  vigorous  and  well- written  book.  No  better  justification 
of  America,  no  clearer  statement  of  war  policy,  has  appeared 
in  this  country." —  Yorkshire  Post. 

"  It  is  a  wonderful  work,  brilliantly  described,  and  it 
should  be  read  by  all." — Liverpool  Courier. 

JOHN  LANE,  The  Bodley  Head,  Vigo  Street,  W.  i. 


BOOKS    BY    W.    J.    DAWSON 

THE    FATHER   OF  A 
SOLDIER 

Crown  6uo,  Ss.  6d.  net 

A  father's  truly  remarkable  book,  telling  exactly 
how  thousands  of  other  fathers  have  felt,  feel 
now,  and  will  feel.  Every  father  and  mother 
should  read  this  "confession,"  in  which  thousands 
will  see  themselves. 

T/i€  Daily  Express  says  :  "  This  is  at  once  the  book 
of  the  new  father  and  the  new  son,  of  the  old  veteran 
of  life  and  the  new  Happy  Warrior  of  war." 


ROBERT    SHENSTONE 

J    NOVEL 
Crown  8uo,  6b.  net 

"  Treated  with  vigour  and  freshness — a  pleasant  and 
wholesome  story." — Spectator. 

"  It  must  for  all  readers  have  the  charm  of  romance, 

of  an  idyllic  love  story,  and  of  an  ingenious  plot." 

Tr»//i. 

"The  charm  of  Mr.  Dawson's  book,  and  it  has  real 
charm,  lies  in  the  way  in  which  it  is  written." — JVafii>ri. 

JOHN  LANE,  The  Bodlev  Head,  Vigo  Street,  \V.  i. 


Richard  King  in  the  Tatler  says  : — 
"  From  my  own  point  of  view,  '  The  Rough  Road'  is  the 
most  charming  book  that  Mr.  Locke  has  ever  written." 

THE    ROUGH    ROAD 

By   WILLIAM   J.    LOCKE 

EIGHTH  EDITION  6s.  6d.  net 

"  Mr.  W.  J.  Locke  is  a  past-master  of  story-telling,  and  his 
method  grows  better  every  year.  In  'The  Rough  Road'  it 
is  admirably  exhibited,  for  the  whole  book  is  written  almost 
entirely  in  dialogue,  and  to  do  this,  and  do  it  well  (as  every 
one  who  has  ever  tried  to  write  a  novel  knows),  is  the  height 
of  technical  excellence." —  Westminster  Gazette. 


"  The   writer   certainly   deserves    to    be   discovered   and 
placed  on  the  bede-roll  0/ /awe."— Saturday  Review. 

THE     LOVE    OF    AN 
UNKNOWN  SOLDIER 

IS  THE   TITLE  THAT   HAS   BEEN   GIVEN   TO  THE 

MS.    FOUND    IN   A   DUG-OUT 

REGARDING  WHICH   SO  MUCH    CURIOSITY    HAS    BEEN    MANIFESTED 

"  One  of  the  most  interesting  revelations  of  soldier 
psychology  which  the  War  has  produced,  for  the  mysterious 
lover  is  typical  in  his  emotions,  though  exceptionally  gifted 
in  their  expression." — Evening  Standard. 

"  His  outpourings  are  greater  than  love-letters.  They  are 
life-and-death  letters,  written  with  a  thoughtful  simplicity 
that  knocks  at  the  door  of  the  heart." — Daily  Express. 

NINTH  EDITION.        4s.  net 
JOHN  LANE,  The  Bodley  Head,  Vigo  Street,  W.  1. 


LrMO 


A' 


7 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


50m-3.'68(H9242s8)9482 


vw  iiMiii  m 


3  1205  00985  3472 


^/\ — . 


AA      000  294  368 


